


Standing on the Ceiling

by enzhe



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Ironsons, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Mostly Canon Compliant, Protect Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, iron kids x happiness, ironkids, that's harley's job anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-02-10 06:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enzhe/pseuds/enzhe
Summary: Tony wanted his boys back. Alive and growing and happy and watching each others' backs, because if he's not there to do it--no one else can do it better.





	1. you're the guy who can fix it

**Author's Note:**

> Title (and most of the motivation for this fic) is from "Stronger Than Ever" by Raleigh Ritchie. 
> 
> I'm new to the fandom, and am not very savvy with Ao3 conventions in general. Please be kind as I figure out how things like tags, ship names etc. work. Also the plot, because I don't actually have one yet. Just a premise, and a lot of Not Being Okay with how Endgame...ended.

           

* * *

 

            New York City is a good distraction.

            It’s probably more chaotic than usual, Harley tells himself, uses this to make mental wiggle room for how overwhelmed he’s feeling. The whole world is in chaos. Half of the universe just came back.

            Tony didn’t.

            _Damn him._

            Doesn’t mean they’re not still connected. They _are._ The Starkphone in his pocket is proof of that.

            _Welcome to your city home, Harley,_ the AI murmurs into into his earbuds. _The entrance is on your right._

            It takes a couple taps through the Keys app (and fingerprints, and an eye scan, and voice recognition), but he pulls up the keyscreen that unlocks the street level door, and then the elevator, and then the front door of his new apartment. Twenty-seventh floor. Can he call it a penthouse? He’s calling it a penthouse. He owns the roof, too, apparently.

            It’s probably awesome. He’ll find out in a minute, when his stupid eyes stop crying long enough to actually see. For now, back pressed hard against the reinforced door, he’s just glad it’s quiet.

            _Are you feeling better, Harley?_ asks the AI, soft and pleasant and oddly personal. He tells her he is. It’s not a lie. It’s been a few minutes, and he is feeling better. He keeps his back pressed against the door, mops up his face, and asks her to text Abby that he’s arrived and everything is awesome and he’ll call her soon.

            He’s careful not to look at his phone screen as the AI pulls up Abby’s contact. A week ago, Abby was thirteen. Bratty and snarky and fiercely protective of her big brother. A week ago, Harley was seventeen, taking university classes online and serving as Rose Hill’s primary mechanic, electrician, and general fix-it man, while finding out just how catastrophically dating can suck and packing his needy baby sister’s lunchbag every night before crashing into bed, no matter how irresponsibly late he’s stayed up _this time._

            Harley’s still seventeen.

            Abby’s eighteen. Abby’s eighteen, with a house and a boyfriend and a _baby_ and hands stiff with scar tissue from five-year-old burns. Burns she got trying to rescue Harley from a burning garage.

            Harley wasn’t there to rescue. He’d been working with a welding torch when his hands turned to ash. Watched the first sparks catch as he stopped existing, no mouth left to scream.

            Then he existed again.

            _Would you like me to give you a tour?_ murmurs the AI. _If you would like a snack first, the kitchen is fully stocked._

            “Aw, I’m good, thanks,” he says. It still feels weird to engage with a disembodied voice, but she’s easy to talk to. "So, uh, what do we need to fix?"

            The AI guides him over hardwood floors and past soft grey wall to a state-of-the-future lab, walks him through the steps to throw files from the phone up onto giant holographic screens. He’s worked with older versions of this tech before—Tony never stopped upgrading his garage workstation—but it all starts overwhelming again. Like Mom and Abby, this is more familiar than not, but the _not_ part is just—hard to breathe around.

            He existed. Then he didn’t.

            He’s not entirely sure he exists now.

            "Give me a sec," he pleads with the AI. "I'll—I got this, just—a moment. Just need a moment."

            He doesn't know why he expected some sort of reprimand. Something pissed or impatient in the AI's lilting voice—but all he gets is a sympathetic _Of course, Harley. Take all the time you need_ and it’s reassuring and intimate in ways even his proud paranoia can’t read pity into it.

            So he takes a minute. And another minute. And in those minutes he starts wondering, just like he's been wondering for the two days he spent getting here, what the fuck he thinks he's doing.

            _Helping Tony,_ whispers the small, giddy, desperate inner voice he's been relying way way way too much on. It’s not the only voice he’s got to rely on though.

            “Hey, can you—can you play Tony’s message? Sorry I keep asking you to—”

            _I can play it as many times as you like,_ comforts the AI. _Playing message._

            “Kid. Harley.” Tony’s voice. Rushed, bright, feverish. “I think I figured it out. Actually if you’re hearing this I definitely did, because you’re here to hear it, and I’m glad. I—don’t have time to explain, or even double check like I usually would, but I’m pretty sure I’ve put everything you need plus a many things you’ll hopefully never need on this phone and this phone is going to get to you if there’s a you for—well. You know what I mean. So I did it, I’m awesome, but I’m also dead, and I’m that asshole who’s gonna ask for your help even after I’m dead so—Harley, I need your help. Okay? I mean you don’t have to. But there’s stuff I want fixed and you’re the guy who can fix it. And—I want my kids to be there for each other. Time’s up. Thanks, kid. You’ll do good. You always do.”

            The message ends. The time stamp puts it at an hour no one should be awake, two days before Harley started existing again. Before Tony Stark did the stupid superhero thing and died saving the effing universe. 

            Harley gets up. Forces focus. There’s plenty to focus on: gleaming metal countertops, a wall hung with every mechanic’s tool he’s ever used or longed to use and more than a few he’s never seen before, a ridiculous amount of safety gear ready displayed pointedly on the custom rack in front of it. He’s willing to bet the hooks on those tools won’t retract until the AI thinks he’s got the right safety gear on. Because Tony Stark is a freaking hypocrite.

            _I’m here,_ he thinks, breathing carefully around the growing ache in his throat. _I’m here, Tony. Whatever you want me to do—I don’t know if I can—but I’ll try. I’ll try. I’m here._

            He’s seventeen five years after he stopped being anything and he’s a thousand miles away from a home his family doesn’t live in anymore and he does not, in fact, know what the fuck he’s doing. He’s just so, so grateful for something to do. “All right, Miss AI, go time,” he tells the ceiling. “Whataya got for me?”

            Blueprints and project outlines and file menus flood the holographic screens.

            “Got any playlists to go with any of this?”

            Music shifts the still air lighter, easier to get in and out of his lungs. Starts off with song he added to three separate playlists a couple weeks—five years ago. _Focus. Fix. Find something to fix._ He does. One of the renderings catches his attention—some kind of compact mobile armor, it looks like, a titanium-gold-encased add-on to a polymer combat suit. It looks like—a projector? Yes—it projects an energy-field shield, and the concept is that it responds to real-time battle analysis to anticipate where it needs to be. The potential here is insane—heavy-duty protection without significantly increasing weight or hampering flexibility—and Harley is _here_ for it. 

            Heh. Here.

            A couple renderings have been dragged into a trash file, but not deleted. Satisfied that he’s got the basic schematics down, Harley dives right into those. He knows for a fact that he learns more from Tony’s failed trials—and working up from there into what _didn’t_ fail—than from every engineering and design class he’s taken combined.

            One of the discarded case designs looks like a spider. A tiny gold spider that would track across a suit like an itsy bitsy sidekick. It’s—it’s wicked. It’s beautiful.

            It’s fucking perfect.

            Harley drags the spidershield files out of the trash. 

            “Let’s make you real, Itsy Bitsy,” he murmurs. “Itsy-Bitsy Prototype H-1, coming right up.”

            He can do this.

            Harley Keener exists. Probably.

            Either way, he’s got this.

 


	2. bye, Tony (love you)

* * *

 

Harley works on the Itsy Bitsy H-1 until the AI reminds him that if he wants to make his appointment upstate, he needs to leave within fifteen minutes.

He spends about four of those minutes in the shower, another two on his hair, five getting into the suit he last wore when Mom forced him to church for Easter services a month-or-five-years ago. He finds energy drinks and granola bars in the kitchen, grabs a couple of each, has the AI reassure him three times that all he has to do to make sure the apartment is locked behind him is tell her to lock it—so they lock up, and he rides an elevator for maybe the tenth time in his life, and steps out into the building’s underground garage, eyes snapping straight to the brand-new Mustang waiting for him. 

Who’s arranging all of this? Miss Potts (Mrs. Stark?) must have more than enough to deal with—but it was always her, before. Handwritten notes on packages filled with engineering gear: _Tony mentioned that you’d run out of micro diodes. Threw in a few other things he usually orders at the same time._ And when the bank had tried to repossess their house after Mom’s hours got cut, and the creepy bank dude who came to threaten and leer at the same time showed up to let them know their mortgage had been paid in full and to “please let Miss Potts know that you’re fully satisfied” when he handed over the final paperwork with trembling hands. 

Today Miss Potts is burying her husband. That’s where Harley is going, and he’s going in a brand new car he never deserved and doesn’t know how to return. 

_Traffic is heavy, Harley. I suggest we leave now,_ intones the AI. 

So they do. Well, Harley leaves. Does having an AI programmed into his phone and his earpods and the watch he’s wearing for the first time and the shouldn’t-be-his car make him part of something plural? 

“Hey, Miss AI?” he asks, half way through his second Red Bull. He probably shouldn’t be driving—not through NYC traffic, not after a night without even thinking of sleep, not with the panicky way he swallows back thoughts of where he’s going and why. But he has to go. And he doesn’t know how else to go—the address programmed into his phone doesn’t come up on ride-hailing apps or even google maps—and he knows literally no one in this city. “Do you have, uh, a name? Something you’d prefer to be called? Because you sound like a person. Like you should have a name.”

There’s a pause. Two seconds tops, but the AI has never delayed response before. 

_Some people call me Karen_ , she says. 

Karen. Caring. Yeah. “That’s a great name,” he says. The steering wheel jerks a little on its own, veering him vital inches to the right as an asshole taxi driver cuts in front of him. Good to know his life isn’t entirely in his own hands in this mess. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Karen.”

_The pleasure is all mine_ , she says, and sounds—if possible—even more personable. 

* * *

 

They don’t bury Tony. Miss Potts sets ashes and arc reactor sailing on a small coracle of flowers and Harley thinks numbly _that’s it. That’s what’s left_ and then knows he’s wrong because the people seeing it off— _that’s_ what’s left. This is what’s left of Tony Stark in this world, these huddled family groups and solemn superheroes and half of them—half, including Harley—wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be anywhere, if Tony hadn’t been Tony. Wholes where there were fractions, that’s what’s Tony left. 

And holes where there should be Tony. Pepper and her daughter—two where there were three, where Harley’s family is three-again. Harley has less right to the sucking soul-sinkhole his grief has built into him than anyone else here, maybe. Probably. Doesn’t make it any easier to keep on like it’s not there. Like he can just stand, walk, talk, without—without those hungry black edges tugging at every muscle and breath. 

He moves out of the way as soon as the formal mourning starts breaking up. The flower-boat still bobs in the sun, and eyes drift to it again and again, but people start talking. Hugging. Crying. Comforting. 

Honoring. 

There’s food set out in the house—a weird but delicious-smelling spread of foods that look like they all came from different take-out restaurants. About the only thing Harley recognizes is pizza, but he guesses at least some of it is Chinese or Vietnamese or something. Harley waits until two other people have filled up their plates, takes just enough to edge away from the sugar-and-caffeine crash his not-so-smart breakfast choices were heading him towards. 

He eats. He looks around. He hasn’t seen Miss Potts since he came inside, and she’s the only person here he knows. He should wait to—to greet her, thank her, offer consolation, do _something_ for her—but he can’t. He can’t. 

There are post-its on a counter in the kitchen. He takes ones, writes, crumples, tries again—has a pocket with four balled-up post-it squares before he leaves one behind:

_I’ll help. Anything. Anytime. Anywhere. Thank you for everything. -H.K._

He goes back to the water. The coracle is taking on water, now, and some of the flowers are disintegrating from water-log, trailing petals. 

“Bye, Tony,” Harley whispers. _Love you._

Good thing Mom always made him carry a handkerchief. His has about run out of spots un-saturated enough to be useful, which is as good an excuse to leave as any. 

He’s walking around the house to get to where he parked the car when a flash of movement snaps his eyes upwards. Way, way upwards. There’s something settling into the top a tree—a really tall tree, the tallest tree on the lot, in fact—and it’s—a person. In a suit. A funeral suit, not a superhero suit, though they definitely just swung to the top of a really tall tree in one fluid flash of superhuman grace. 

“Spider-man?” whispers Harley, star-struck. To himself, more of a croak than an actual enunciated word, but up at the top of that tree a pale face snaps around to stare straight at him. 

There’s another jolt of super-speed, and maybe-Spider-man is gone. 

Harley is still staring at the tree when a lady bursts out of the house. He thinks _beautiful, anxious, a little like Mom_ and nods politely to her just in case she notices him, but her eyes slide right past him, scan the trees—all the way to the top—and then she’s stepping out on the lawn far enough to look up at the roof. 

“Peter?” she calls. “Where did you go? Honey? Peter—”

_I’ll call Mom on the way back,_  thinks Harley, guilt rising because he hasn’t taken the time to check in with her yet. She’s—not really okay, hasn’t been okay since Dad left, even less okay since Harley stopped existing, definitely isn’t okay with him being suddenly back—but she’s _Mom._

Harley gets in the car. Thanks Karen as she pulls up his return route. Drives away to the sound of someone who sounds like she really cares still looking for her lost Peter. 

_I hope she found him,_  Harley thinks, hours later, melting hollow and relieved into the silence of the apartment. He gets most of his suit off, gives up, collapses onto the bed in dress shirt and boxers. It’s so soft. It’s so quiet. 

It’s so lonely. 

The talk with Mom was short and didn’t go well. 

Peter sure is lucky, he thinks, _where did you go? Honey?_ still stuck in his ears. Like the fractioning flowers bleeding petals on the water in front of Tony’s house are stuck to his eyes. 

Harley lies still and waits on sleep to fill up everything empty. 

When he wakes up, he’ll get to work again. 

 

 


	3. Spider-man's Number One Fan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I know what this is shaping up to be, which is a lot of fluff and probably a lot of angst but in the end it's Iron Kids x Happiness, without disregarding the trauma and tragedy they're healing from. And a Harley/Peter love story, unless I surprise myself and things stay platonic, in which case we'll go with Harley & Peter love story because FRIENDSHIP LOVE IS 8000% VALID. Anyway please let me know if I've missed something in the tags
> 
> Plots creep up on me by surprise sometimes. I don't stress about it. 
> 
> huge huge thanks to everyone who has left kudos, added a bookmark, or been an absolute life-affirming angel and reviewed <3 <3 <3

 

* * *

 

_—up, Harley, you need to wake up, Harley—_

He bolts up. Falls off a bed. Yelps from the floor, “who—what—Karen? Miss Karen? That you?”

_I’m sorry to wake you,_ she says, and sounds it. _Security protocols command that I inform you of the intruder on the roof._

Harley’s still half in his dream, and comes up with wild images of Iron Man armor bursting piece by piece through his ceiling. “In—intruder?” He manages. An AI can’t judge him for how high and squeaky his voice just went, can it? “Uh—okay, uh—are they—dangerous? Or just like chilling? Is that something intruders do in New York? Chill on random rooftops? Do I need to call the police?”

_No need to call the police,_ Miss Karen says, all warm and reassuring. _The intruder can be classified as dangerous, but my analyses conclude that you are currently not in danger. The intruder is Spider-man._

“No shit!” Harley is suddenly very awake. “You’re telling me Spider-man is hanging out on my roof? The—the real Spider-man? How do you know it’s not just some creep in costume?”

_This would be a prohibitively expensive costume,_ Miss Karen says, sounding amused. _Are you going to approach him? Spider-man is in distress._

Harley freezes with one leg in the basketball shorts he just pulled out of his duffle bag. “In distress? Is he injured? Is he bleeding? Fuck, fuck—who do I call? Does he need an ambulance? Where—”

_He is not physically injured._

“Oh,” says Harley. He thinks of a pale face staring down from the top of a tree at a funeral. If he could leap forty feet in the air when somewhere he needed to be stopped being a place he could breathe, he totally would. “Okay, um, maybe I should just leave him alone then. Or maybe he needs someone to talk to? You got any opinions on whether or not Spiderman wants company on sucky days, Miss Karen?”

_I have many opinions on Spider-man,_ Miss Karen says. _I am his Number 1 fan._

“What? Really?” Harley laughs. “Who programmed that into you?”

_My programmer was very protective of Spider-man,_ Karen says, a second slower than usual.

“But did he make you a fangirl?” Harley is dressed now and heading into the kitchen, appreciative of the way the lights come on automatically. 

_I used my exceptional ability to process and analyze human behavior to develop my avid support of Spider-man,_ Karen says. She sounds sterner than usual. 

“Thought so. You’re pretty awesome. I’ll trust your word on this. Does Spider-man like oreos?”

_You are also pretty awesome,_ Karen says, soft and warm again. _That is information I am unable to disclose. From an objective viewpoint, based on the most recent demographic data available, probability is very high that Spider-man would enjoy eating oreos._

There’s ice cream in the freezer. It’s crazy-cold against his skin and he’s running out of hands, so he grabs the first suitably-sized container-thing he sees—a big soup pot—fills it with two pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a jar of creamy peanut butter, Ritz crackers, oreos, a roll of paper towels, a handful of spoons. Then he kinda—steps back mentally, looks at himself standing in this ritzy kitchen in flip-flops and basketball shorts and a slept-in button-down dress shirt with a soup pot full of calories and delusions of—of comforting an actual superhero or—what is he thinking?

He isn’t. He isn’t thinking. It’s 4:42 AM and a voice programmed into his phone woke him up and here he is, holding all the things that made his baby sister feel better when she was still his baby sister but she’s not anymore and is also a thousand miles away and he’s probably being punked. By an AI.

_Would you like me to show you the way to the roof, Harley?_

What the hell. He once talked Ironman through a panic attack. It’s not like there’s anyone here to laugh at him. He can go see if Spider-man cheers up with ice-cream. 

"Lead on, Miss Karen."

No one’s on the roof when he steps out onto it, at least not that he can see. The view’s pretty great though, even in gray pre-dawn. At least he’s got a cool cityscape to stare at while feeling really stupid. 

He wanders over to the wall around the roof—it’s about chest-height on him, plenty thick enough to hold a pot full of delicious junk food, and since he’s here he’s going to make the most of it. Goosebumps are rising from the early morning chill, and he opts for oreos before ice cream. 

“Guess he left, huh, Miss Karen?”

Miss Karen is uncharacteristically silent. Maybe she doesn’t work on the roof. Harley helps himself to a second oreo.

He’s on cookie number three when Spider-man comes crawling over the wall. 

“Hey,” says Harley, suddenly, blindingly happy. “Uh—want an oreo?”

Spider-man stares at him. He looks kind of—hunched in, not at all as swagger-y as he is when he’s in action. He’s...unexpectedly short. Maybe even shorter than Harley. 

“I have ice cream, too,” Harley tries. “And ritz. And peanut butter. Pretty much any combination of those is good. ‘S what my sister and I rely on for surviving sucky days, anyway. It helps, I swear.”

Spider-man cocks his head at him. Takes one slow step forward. And another.

“I’m Harley,” he remembers to add. “I think—I think I might have seen you at the funeral today. Sucky day, yeah?”

Spider-man freezes.

“Wait, don’t—don’t worry, I didn’t see your face,” Harley rushes to reassure. “I mean, I did, but you were way up in that tree and—and it wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m faceblind. It’s a thing. Prosopagnosia. Look it up. But, uh—” he steps away, leaving the pot filled with comfort-sugar on the wall, tries to gesture towards it in a way that looks welcoming. “—I can go back inside, if you want. Knock yourself out with the ice cream. I—I live in the apartment right below us. My, uh, security system told me you were up here. Didn’t believe it, though.”

Spider-man is looking at Harley’s arm. At the StarkWatch he fell asleep wearing. At the phone he’s only now remembering to scoop off the wall. The stylized eyes of his mask narrow. He hasn’t said a single word. Hasn’t made any sound at all. 

_Well. I tried._ Harley follows through with pocketing his phone, gives an unfortunately dweeby little wave, turns to go. It’s okay. It’s getting cold out here anyway. He has stuff to do in the lab.

Something touches his arm. Something—sparky, like static electricity, or—sticky—he looks at Spider-man’s fingers, sticking to Harley’s skin through the sleeve of his shirt, to the slightly-bowed shoulders, tentatively-tilted head. “...Or I can stay,” he tries, slowly, not quite believing it. But Spider-man straightens right up. Un-sticks himself, hops up to sit on the wall, goes straight for the peanut butter. 

“Cool,” says Harley. He’s getting colder on the outside, but feels ridiculously warm on the inside. “Pass the Hunk a Hulk of Burning Fudge. And a spoon—thanks—”

Then he turns around to lean his back against the wall, nothing but the width of the soup pot between him and Spider-man, and tilts his face to watch the skyline in the opposite direction of Spider-man’s face. Conveniently enough, there’s the beginning of an admittedly pretty sunrise starting up where his eyes end up pointing. 

He’s a few bites in when he hears a rustle of what might be a mask rolling up. He doesn’t turn to look. He does tell Spider-man he’s only been here a day and he doesn’t know anyone and he probably shouldn’t admit how glad he is to have someone to talk to but the words come spilling out anyway.

“And you know the Snap?” he’s saying suddenly, and he needs to stop, he needs to _stop._ “I was one of the ones who—Snapped, I guess. I was welding and then—and then I was waking up. The garage burned down. Doesn’t matter, Mom sold that house.”

Five years. Five _years._ Felt shorter than the half of today he spent sleeping, and it was _five years._

There’s a nudge against his shoulder. It’s the peanut-butter jar with a spoon stuck in it, and Spider-man is holding it out with his mask rolled up to his nose, a peanut-butter-coated oreo balanced between his teeth. 

He takes the peanut butter, forgoes the spoon to scrape the oreo he forgot he was holding around the inside of the rim. Spider-man takes the oreo out of his mouth and holds it up like he’s making a toast. 

“Dork,” grumbles Harley. They tap oreos, like people in movies clink celebratory champagne. Spider-man laughs. It’s the first sound he’s made all morning. 

“You know the most messed-up part,” says Harley a few minutes of comfortable sugar-swallowing silence later, staring into a sunrise that could rival every shade of pink on Ms. Terrant’s prize-winning peonie bush. The ice cream is melted. He’s really cold. He really doesn’t want to go inside. And he should really, really stop talking. “Imma be safe and guess you don’t want to know. Maybe you could, like, web my mouth shut or—” but Spider-man’s leaning in, white mask-eyes wide, looking more at ease than he’s been all morning. Harley shuts his mouth.

And then it opens again. 

“So I’m gay,” he says, carefully flat. “My mom didn’t know. Until I disappeared. I don’t know exactly how—maybe my sister said something, but I don’t think—anyway there was this awful—rumor, teaching, I dunno what to call it, going around at church. At a lot of local churches, I think. The usual bigot-shit. That the people who got Snapped—that there was a reason they were the ones that got taken. God’s judgment. And my mom—my mom figured that the reason I went dusty was because I was gay.”

Spider-man’s not leaning in anymore. He’s sitting very straight, shoulders back, fists clenched. His mask is still rolled up. Harley can see his jaw lock up. 

“I don’t even know if she’s glad I came back,” Harley whispers. “I don’t think—I don’t think she knows what to think, it must be so confusing for her, and it’s not entirely her fault, she was raised to think—”

Spider-man is hugging him. 

_Spider-man_ is _hugging_ him. 

God, it feels good. He didn’t know a hug could feel like—like the physical embodiment of _you got this_. Those muscles are unbelievably reassuring. 

Spider-man steps back. Rolls down his mask. Holds out his hand. 

They clasp hands. A blur of motion later, the rooftop is empty. 

 

* * *

 


	4. nobody wants that, Peter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos, bookmarks, and especially the reviews! I really really appreciate it! I'd love to hear what you want to see happen with these kids, if you feel like sharing.

 

 

            The first thing Peter learns about grief is that grief eats words. That was the first part of what was happening to him—five and a half, newly orphaned—that was consistent enough, solid enough, for his brain to grasp.

            Words and Peter get along like Flash Thompson and Peter get along. Objectively, Peter’s got all the advantages: intuitive understanding, plenty experience and skill—but when it really counts, when public humiliation or self-actualization is on the line, Peter’s as useless as a blind baby rat. Before both words and Flash.

            It’s not Flash’s fault that Peter-being-Peter inadvertantly hooks into every single one of Flash’s rawest, most-picked-at insecurities. It’s not Peter’s fault, either. It just is. Like when the things he needs to talk about most, the things that are growing huge and feral inside of him until he can’t—can’t be safe anymore, can’t trust himself anymore, needs to push outside of himself so someone can say _no look it’s okay it’s the shadow of a hoodie in your closet there are no monsters and Everyone gets sad sometimes you’re allowed to be sad Peter and You’re doing so good, keep going and one day you won’t wake up wishing you’d died with them_ but he can’t. He has everything he needs, a brain and a tongue and loving people ready to listen but he _can’t_. Like he couldn’t read the third line on the eye charts before he was Spider-man. He strains and he strains and he strains but some things—some things his body just can’t do.

            Not even as Spider-man.

            He doesn’t talk to the kid on the roof because he can’t. Honestly he’s proud of himself just for breathing. For clinging to the outside of the wall until he stopped shaking. He could have gone home, then, crawled down a level and into his purposefully-ajar bedroom window, but he’s also desperate for distraction and Karen is being really insistently encouraging and he can _smell_ the oreos.

            The kid—dude, handsome long-lost prince, whatever, he’s gotta find something better than _kid_ to call him when he’s at least his age, probably older, definitely taller—is like the opposite of everything boiling black inside of Peter. Open and disarming and willing to talk even though Peter doesn’t. Because Peter can’t.

            By the time they’re digging into the ice cream, though, enough of the hate-knots have loosened in Peter’s chest that he’s reasonably sure he could get normal-ish words out. Normal for him, anyway. 

            But he doesn’t. Harley hasn’t shown the slightest expectation that Peter talk to him. Hasn’t seemed to expect anything, actually—he was actually going to leave the roof so Spider-man could eat all his comfort calories without him, and didn’t seem at all upset about it.

            _Everyone_ has expectations of Peter. Towering expectations. Doesn’t matter if he’s in the suit or not, his own potential looms over pretty much every interaction he has, just waiting for the inevitable screw-up to bring those failed hopes swooping out through Aunt-May-Principal-Morita-Tony-Stark- _Ned_ ‘s dissapointed eyes and devour him whole.

            And this kid, Harley, he just seems happy that Peter’s eating his oreos with peanut butter.

             Peter has to protect him. He is going to protect the shit out of Harley and his ridiculous cooking pot of ice cream and cookies.

            Also there is this crazy little assumption wiggling through his brain that Harley may just be a Harley _Stark_. Not officially, obviously, but he’s living on the top floor of a building Tony apparently bought and furnished as a back-up home for people he cared about when the entire real estate market spiraled sideways because half of everyone stopped living in their homes, a building with an apartment for May and Peter set up directly below Harley’s. He’s wearing the latest StarkWatch, has a model of StarkPhone that hasn’t been released to the public yet—Peter knows this because Happy told him, when he made sure he and May accepted theirs—and said his “security system” alerted him to Spider-man’s presence on his roof. And addressed his phone as _Miss Karen._

            He was at the funeral. He cried at the funeral.

            Granted, Harley doesn’t really look like a Stark. Doesn’t much act like one, if that’s an actual thing and not Peter being an asshole who misses Tony too much and is unfairly projecting. Still, _still,_ Harley seems smart and generous and _kind_ , and those are Tony-things, plus people suspected Peter of being a secret Stark lovechild so regularly that a Secret Stark Lovechild existing must be a distinct possibility. Tony has another kid who didn’t exist a week ago—a daughter, Tony has a _daughter,_ and Peter has to find a way to make sure he can protect her at all times, he’s working on that—but Harley’s here, and Peter can start with protecting Harley.

            Yes. Yes, that sounds good. And he can see if Harley wants to be friends, too, that should make it easier to protect him—well, maybe, there's some definite pros and cons to think through there. But he told Peter he knows exactly no one in all New York City, and that's not okay. Lucky that Peter knows some of the very best people on the island, and very possibly in the world: Ned, and MJ, and May.

            Major problem though: it’s extremely possible that Harley won’t want to be friends with Peter Parker. Peter Parker is not exactly good at the whole friends thing, and not for lack of trying. The best he can manage is that most people don’t actively dislike him, even when he regularly ruins grading curves without actually studying, and can’t talk when he sometimes really needs to talk, and maybe makes some of the distance between himself and everyone else happen accidentally-on-purpose because the people he loves keep _leaving him._

            Not Ned. Ned, actual human beam of goodness and light, broke all the rules. Mostly by being so stubborn and brave and earnest and _good_ that there really isn’t much Peter won’t do to make him smile.

            Harley deserves a friend like Ned. Spider-man can’t introduce Harley to Ned—he can’t put them in danger that way. And that just leaves Peter Parker.

            Shit.

            He needs a battle plan. A tactical approach to casually introducing himself to his new neighbor that is so strategically brilliant that he doesn’t screw it up just by being himself. He needs to go Captain America on this.

            He needs Harley to leave his apartment already. Seriously, the guy hasn’t set foot outside in two days.

            That’s fine. It’s all fine. This just gives him time to figure out how to not be himself _(nobody wants that, Peter)_. Their first meeting interrupted Peter being a shaking and sobbing mess on a rooftop in the middle of the night and he didn’t even manage to _talk_.

            He can do better than that.

            Right?

            ( _Please—_ )

 

 

           


	5. just build something

* * *

Harley is fitting cartridges of soon-to-be-molten titanium alloy into a 3D printer he spent the past four hours simultaneously working through tutorials for and drooling over, hands shaking a little because the little metal rods he’s inserting here are worth more than he could make in five years with the kind of high-paying electrical engineering job he sometimes lets himself dream of having, when Miss Karen informs him that Abby is calling. Again.

It’s been—like a day, something like that, there are no windows in the lab and his trips to the kitchen for food and coffee have been distracted at best—he should probably take this call. Let her know he’s still not dust. 

He should probably shower, too, now that he’s been knocked out of the _make all the things work_ zone enough to be aware of how his body feels. And smells. 

“Answer your phone one of the first four times next time, you assgerbil,” Abby says, and for a moment she sounds so exactly like she did before—like his actual kid sister, ready to take on bullies literally twice her size if she thinks for a hot second that Harley’s not doing enough about it himself—that his eyes well up, and he grins. 

There’s a baby crying in the background, though. 

“Okay, okay, I got you,” he says. “Assgerbil? Wow. How’s the tiny dude?”

“Teething,” she says, and sighs, and just like that she’s moved on from pinging Harley’s memories of his favorite bratty teenager to sounding exactly like Mom, Mom impatiently swiping away tears she didn’t have time for because she was busy working her way through the stack of bills she’d needed to address for two weeks now. Mom when she was twice Abby’s age now. But Abby sounds just like her. 

“I’m sorry,” Harley whispers. 

“What, that babies grow teeth? Listen, EJ’s been asking for your contact info. Can I give it to him? That’s why I’m calling. That and making sure you aren’t bleeding out in an alley after being jumped by a gang or something.”

“You have a seriously warped view of New York,” he tells her. “And what the fuck? Of course I don’t want you to give EJ my number. Or my email. Or literally anything. What even the hell? I already get that some people prefer me Dusted, Abby.”

“No one prefers that, Harley. You absolute dumbass. I bet you haven’t even seen New York. I bet you haven’t even left your apartment. I bet I know more about the city than you do. Here, have this, it’s frozen it’ll help—” and there are kissy sounds. 

“Uh,” says Harley.

“A frozen teething thing for Roman. My baby. Who is teething. Ice numbs sore gums.” She’s speaking to him slowly and clearly. He can _hear_ her rolling her eyes. 

He loves her so much. It’s making his chest too tight. 

“I met Spider-man,” he tells her, which he didn’t plan to tell her, but he also feels suddenly insanely smug, like this was an achievement he earned somehow—or maybe it’s just that he knows this will make Abby happy. 

He’s right. Miss Karen has to turn down the volume, she squeals so loud. Baby Roman stops crying with a startled _bah?!_

“Shut up,” she says, “shut up shut up shut up, the real Spider-man? How? You _did_ get mugged, didn’t you? And he saved you? Did he talk to you? Or did you just like see him from afar and you’re way over-exxagerating because—”

“I fed him ice cream,” Harley gloats. “An entire pint of Half Baked. He ate almost all of it, too.”

"No way. I don't believe you."

"Way. But I wouldn't believe me either."

"So you did get mugged. Jumped. Purse snatched?“

"Uh, no. Your first guess was right, though—I haven't been out of the apartment enough to have a chance at being mugged. I should probably fix that soon. Get, like, something not frozen or with a ten year shelf life to eat.”

“I think you should re-think your thing against EJ. He had five years to change, Harley. I think he wants to apologize.”

“I don’t want to talk about EJ.”

“‘Course you don’t. But you should. Your life here still exists, even if you ran away. People are already giving me lists of things for you to fix when you come back—”

“When I come—? Abby, you’re the one who told me to leave—”

“Take a _break,_ ” she says, and her baby starts crying again, and Harley totally gets where the little dude is coming from. His sister is scary. “I told you to take a break. Give yourself a chance to get used to…everything. Give everyone a chance. I wasn’t getting _rid_ of you.”

He hears the fragile fears under her words, and takes a moment to figure out what he wants to say. He didn’t mean to abandon her—he’ll never, ever abandon her, he could have come to New York _years_ ago if he didn’t have to make up for everything Dad left broken behind him—“I…can visit, for sure,” he says finally. “You know I’m there if you need me, Abigail. Is mom…?”

“Mom’s boyfriend’s wife and kids came back from the dust,” she says, flat and hard. “It’s a mess. They totally hate her. Have it out for her. Which—yeah, I can imagine—but it’s not her fault—”

_It’s not my fault, either. That I came back. That I was dust._ “I gotta go,” he says, after a moment to make sure his voice comes out even. “Good luck with the teething thing. I’m serious about—about being there, if you need me. Call. I’ll answer faster next time.”

“You better,” she says, and he wonders if she’s trying not to cry. 

They hang up. 

Harley takes a couple minutes to breathe, make sure he has steady hands and a clear-enough brain, before checking over the printer set-up one more time—and hitting the print command. He’s got three other printers already working, building components for the Itsy-Bitsy from plexiglass and thermoplastic polymer, and it’ll be a good twelve hours before everything’s done and ready to be assembled. 

He could get started on another project. There are so many—he doesn’t know if any of them are more urgent, he picked this one on a whim and—no. He stinks. He’s wearing the shirt he wore to Tony’s funeral. There’s no one here for him to take care of but himself, and he’s doing a deeply pathetic job of it. 

So he showers—it’s a heck of a lot more fun than he expected, there are five separate water jets and a steam setting and Miss Karen can vary the water pressure from a waterfall to a misty drizzle and while it creeps him out a bit to be talking to a pleasant disembodied voice in a bathroom, it’s infinitely better than being completely alone. 

Which he is, once he’s dry and dressed and ate enough to not be hungry and drops into a clean bed in clean clothes, and the lights all go off and Miss Karen wishes him a good night and the huge empty _difference_ of everything settles with black, tangible weight. 

_Don’t be a pussy, Keener,_ he tells himself. Pushes back against the sob that wants to come. He cried—he already cried. He cried when he told Tony goodbye, and now it’s time to move on. 

He doesn’t cry. He starts with _cylinders valves spark plugs piston piston rings connecting rod crankshaft_ and keeps going until he listed all the parts in a Mustang’s engine, mentally assembling as he goes. Then he gets to work on the transmission. 

He’s got most of a working car before sleep claims him. 

* * *

 


	6. What’d you do anyway, grab a welding torch?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THEY'RE FINALLY TALKING. even Peter. Good job, Peter!
> 
> thank you so so much for kudos, bookmarks, & comments. I'm so glad to have people to fangirl with!! I'm already falling behind on answering comments, but I'm not giving up. My life is kinda full though (ft job, spouse, kids, the works) so I need a little extra patience maybe
> 
> I'm kinda scared my characterization isn't quite cutting it, especially with Harley. Hopefully that part gets easier as we go. I've been writing snippets for future scenes as they come and I am so excited to get to where they'll fit in the story. I love love love feedback. 
> 
> anyone else thrown by the new Far From Home trailer? I...I have so many mixed feelings...

 

 

* * *

 

There’s this tall, wincing teenager blocking the corner of the bodega May needs to get to—the part with the first aid supplies she needs to re-stock (constantly. She really needs to start buying in bulk). The way he tries to hide the badly burned hand curled protectively at his side is so painfully _Peter_ that she's getting in his space and assessing what she can see of the injury before her borough-born-and-bred, mind-your-own-business attitude can remind her that she knows better than this, she really, really does. 

"Hey, I'm a nurse, let me look," she says by way of greeting, and is so fully prepared to be told to fuck off that the startled, sweet, decidedly polite reply she gets truly startles her. 

"Of-of course, Ma'am, Miss, Miss Nurse," stutters the kid. Is definitely sizing her up warily (good, he's not an idiot), but proffers the injured limb obligingly. 

There's a nasty welt along the top of his palm and across two fingers, weeping spots where the epidermis is entirely burned away. At its worst point—first joint of the index finger—it's bone-white, looking nastily close to a 3rd degree burn. How this kid isn't a sobbing mess, she has no idea. And this whole encounter is rubbing ever uncomfortably closer to _just like Peter._

"Okay, kid, I'm going to go full nosy neighborhood nurse on you and let you know that the stuff you can buy here is not going to cut it for a wound like that. Preferred choice: you go to an actual medical clinic. Under the highly likely circumstance that that's not going to happen despite the polite and obedient way you're nodding along, you come with me and I help you clean that up and apply a hospital-grade gel patch. Understandable if you don't want to take me up on it, but I'd be putting myself in at least as much stranger-danger as I'm putting you, and it's going to keep me up at night imagining the ways that wound can get infected if I don't have at least some type of reassurance--"

"Okay," says the kid. 

“—that you'll get the help you need—wait, what? Just like that?"

"Sure. I'm going with my gut on this one," he says, looking adorably bashful. "I’m not getting any bad vibes here. Plus it's kinda hard to deal with something like this one-handed, and there’s no one I can—I'd be much obliged if—if you're serious, ma'am.”

“Oh, I am,” she tells him. Is still a little surprised by how readily he follows her out.

They’re halfway down the block when he speaks up again.

“Um. I’m Harley—my name’s Harley Keener. It’s nice to meet you. And, um, thank you. For offering, I wasn’t really sure what to do, I just googled…anyway maybe I could—I'm good at fixing things, cars and electronics, stuff like that—maybe there's something I could do in return—"

"I've got my own teenaged fix-it kid, thanks though," May tells him, amused. “Which is why I have supplies to treat that hand of yours. Nice to meet you too, Mr. Keener. I’m May. What’d you do anyway, grab a welding torch?”

“Yes,” he says, wide-eyed. 

“You’re kidding,” she says. “Tell me you’re kidding. And then promise me you’ll never go near a tool like that until you’re properly trained, okay?”

“I _am_ properly trained,” he grumbles, and it’s so like surly-defensive- _I know I fucked up but I’m not going to admit it_ -Peter that May catches herself smiling. Which is not at all the appropriate response, but what can you do? And the kid’s still talking, earnest and plaintive. “It was a—a bad reaction. I know how to safely use a torch, I've been doing it since I was twelve, I just—I didn’t anticipate reacting like that. ‘S all. ‘M not promising anything.”

And then he sends her a hopeful, crooked smile, like he thinks he can charm her into forgetting any and all further lectures. 

“We’ll see if my own disaster-kid is home when we get there,” she tells him sternly. “He can help you finish up with your project, if there’s welding left to do.”

He seems a little hesitant at that, looks like he’s trying to figure out how to politely get out of having her kid sicced on him, but then he notices the building they’re approaching and all that’s left is surprise. 

“You—you live here?”

“I do now.” She can’t help the sigh. She misses the old place. The home she and Peter made there, made irreplaceable by all the tiny stacked building blocks of time and memory that made it _home._ “Lived all my life in Queens, which is a couple miles that way. This particular building is new. I can tell you're not local—where were you before here?”

“Tennessee,” he answers, distracted by what he's saying next: "Me too. I mean I live here, too. On the top floor.”

“How about that,” May says, surprised and newly appraising. This is Tony’s building. The kid isn’t here by accident. “You said your name was Harley?”

“That’s me,” he agrees, sounding as thrown by this sudden connection as May is. “Um—I’m sorry if this is awkward—” they’re in the elevator, May punching the button for the second-highest floor—“like, you seem—your voice seems kind of familiar. I can’t recognize faces, so. I don’t recognize you. But you haven’t—met me? Before?”

“I don’t think so,” May says slowly. “But, you know, everything is so upside-down right now. We’re all in survival mode. There are bound to be details, names, all that kind of stuff, that our brains forget.”

“Guess so,” says Harley. He sounds suddenly, achingly young. And lonely. 

May pulls out her phone. Speed-texts Peter as she leads the way down the hall. 

_M: u home?_

_P: you said i wasnt allowed :'(_

_M: now u r. some1 here 2 meet_

_P: if it's Nick Fury I'm not coming_

_M: Now, Peter._

_M: no fury but mine_

_P: omw! :)_

_P: wait what’d i do??_

Harley's as well-behaved a patient as May could ask for.A few tears leak out and he tries to hide them, veins popping on arms working so hard to keep still as she does the awful work of cleaning and disinfecting that her own muscles twitch in sympathy. 

Burn wounds are a bitch. Broken bones can hurt less. 

The extra-strength Tylenol she dosed him with starts to kick in about the same time she finishes up wrapping the gauze, and when she sits back and starts to pull her gloves off he shudders and settles, breath hissing through his teeth in abject relief.

And then he thanks her. For basically torturing him. Getting all the brownie points, this kid. 

She offers him the fruit bowl and gives him the burn-care rundown as he chomps through an apple, then a pear, then two bananas—sheesh. He’s as bad as Peter, and Peter has an enhanced metabolism as an excuse. Not that she can get Peter to eat a full serving of fruit. 

Speaking of—

“May? I’m home?” it comes out a question because he thinks he’s in trouble. She feels a little guilty for that last text. He’s been...difficult to manage, the very little that May still tries to manage, and she’s maybe slipping too easily into manipulation, joking or not. She’s going to do better.

“In here, baby,” she calls. 

And there he is. Pink-cheeked and messy-haired, like he jammed the mask on to swing here and barely remembered to pull it off. Harley twists in his chair, gets in one good look—promptly goes a little pink himself. 

Hmmmm.

“H-hey,” Peter stammers, going all wide-eyed. “You—you’re—” and he’s shooting an inexplicably panicked look her way. She’s definitely missing something here. 

“This is Harley,” she says quickly, hoping to save her baby before he gets more frantic than he already is. “He lives right above us, and grabbed a welding torch today. Have you two met?”

“No,” says Harley, echoed by Peter a half-beat late. 

Oh. _Oh._ This is a Spider-man thing, isn't it? 

Peter hasn't been sticking to walls and peeping through windows, has he? He wouldn't do that. Not her Peter.  Definitely not. Probably. 

“You were welding?” And there it is—whatever was freaking him out seems suddenly okay, inherent enthusiasm bubbling right up to take its place. “What were you making? Can I see? Can I help? I burned two of my fingerprints off on a torch once—“ he displays said fingers proudly—“by accident, May, I swear! Anyways, they grew back. Is that why your hand is bandaged? Damn, that must hurt.”

“Nah, it’s good,” Harley says, sitting even straighter while his voice goes oh-so-casual. Oh, teenagers. “Mostly because I lucked into meeting New York’s best nurse.” 

Peter goes from glowing to the _how dare flirt_ face so fast she’s laughing before she can catch herself. “If only all my patients acknowledged this truth so readily,” she says easily. “Must be a southern charm thing. Peter, Harley here is from Tennessee.”

“Tenne—Tennessee? Where in—shoot, I can’t think of any cities in Tennessee. Wait. Memphis. Nashville. Are you from Nashville?”

She feels embarrassed for him. He’s so smart. Except when he’s so, so dumb. 

“Nah, I’m from a big patch of nothing called Rose Hill,” Harley says equably enough, bless him. “We got our fourth stoplight like two months—before—not long ago. The only interesting thing that’s ever happened in Rose Hill is Iron Man crash-landing there once.”

“I mean, that’s got to be cooler than anything else that happens in Tennessee,” Peter says, and then his brain starts to catch up with him and he tries to amend it with: “like I know there are country music festivals and some real ominous atomic history in Oak Ridge and you got Dolly Parton and she’s amazing but—come on, _Iron Man_ —”

It’s the first time there’s been any reference to Tony that hasn’t clammed him right up. Sent him running. 

“You’re not wrong,” says Harley slowly, “but you got something against country music?”

“Uh—I don’t—I don’t know? I mean I acknowledged Dolly Parton? I haven’t listened to enough to have a valid base for an opinion I guess—”

“I don't even like country music," Harley says, and grins. Like a shark. Hungry. Lots of teeth. May is having second thoughts all of a sudden. "Come on, I’ll show you my workshop. Um, if that’s okay—?” 

“Go on,” May allows, in spite of being totally immune to Peter's puppy eyes. “Come back for dinner. I’ll cook something. And then probably order in. No welding.”

“I can show you around town,” Peter offers as they head for the door. “I know Midtown really well. I know Queens even better, if you wanna go there, too—”

The door shuts behind them, and May sits back, enjoys the pacing-free silence for a bit, then gets up to make herself some tea and enjoy it even better. 

She’ll call Happy soon. There’s things she needs to know about Harley Keener. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH! I meant to put something about Harley's faceblindness--he's faceblind because I'm faceblind, and I've always wanted to write it into a character. Also it's very handy for plot things. Prosopagnosia is a real thing, it's hereditary, and it sucks. I can't recognize my own husband and kids if I see them wearing clothes that aren't theirs or in any other new/confusing context. I'm extremely good at tracking and remembering voices, skills I've developed to compensate.


	7. How to Spectacularly Screw Up All Chances For Love and Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys  
> should Tony be in the tags?  
> tia <3 
> 
> good luck to Harley and Peter, suddenly in a room alone together. may there be survivors

* * *

Abby once summarized the short and catastrophic history of Harley Keener’s Dating Life thusly: _How to Spectacularly Screw Up All Chances For Love and Happiness Because Your Name is Harley and YOU ARE A DUMBASS_. Key points include:

- **try to be Not Gay** by dating girls

-agree to **secretly meet a homophobic asshole** who is even more in denial about being gay than you are

- **take the fall** when That Asshole inevitably betrays you because you want to protect him and you’re too much of a dumbass to protect yourself 

Well, he’s got a glittery new entry for her: 

- **get sued by Stark Industries** by showing off for Hot Neighbor Boy who definitely recognizes tech Literally No One Except Maybe The Actual Tony Stark should recognize

Hot Neighbor Boy is getting more attractive by the moment, all lit up with this infectious, building enthusiasm and Harley has messed things up in a way even he has never messed things up before and he is so, so screwed.

“This is a repulsor lens, isn’t it? It totally is! Siiiiiick. I’ve never seen one this tiny, but dude, the laser caliber is—this could refract a tangible energy field, yeah? There’s no heat component, so it’s probably defensive— _can this generate energy armor?_ This is literally the coolest thing I’ve seen since nanotech became a thing—”

The partially-assembled pieces of the Itsy-Bitsy Prototype H-1 are scattered over Harley’s work surface, right where he left them after burning half the skin off his palm because he’s a traumatized idiot who thought he was a lot less traumatized than he turned out to be. He didn’t forget about them, he just assumed— _why, Harley, why did you fucking assume—_ that the boy he wanted to show off for would merely be dazzled by all the shiny tech, and hopefully be a little bit dazzled by Harley by extension. Or at least be intrigued enough to want to spend more time there. Time with Harley. 

Not once, in all those wide-open seconds between smacking face-first into spontaneous infatuation and wondering if lightning can really strike three times in his otherwise-pathetic life (first Iron Man, then Spider-man, and now—he doesn’t even know his name, _fuck,_ he didn’t get his name—) while leading the way to his apartment did Harley’s usually efficient brain consider that _the random neighbor kid would immediately know what he was looking at._

“Woah—this is part of the casing, right? Are those _spider legs?_ Holy shit. Holy shit! They are, aren’t they?”

Harley just...stares. His face is probably doing something awful. His brain sure is. What his brain isn’t doing is coming up with a solution to this mess. Really, any solution. A bad solution will do. He just—he can’t let down Ms. Potts, he can’t lose this lab, he can’t—

“Uh—I—sorry,” the terrifying, nameless, beautiful Hot Neighbor Boy says, because he paused to look up at Harley and now he’s laying down the tiny titanium appendage whose hinges he’d been admiring like it’s a grenade with the pin pulled. He’s shrinking into himself with every step he takes away from the table. From Harley. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I got a little excited. Sorry, Harley. I won’t touch anything unless it’s okay with you.”

God. He looks like a fucking wounded angel. Now Harley feels like he kicked a baby retriever puppy to go along with every other way he’s screwed up in a single afternoon. 

“I can—I can go,” says the person Harley is going to regret not having a chance with the for the rest of his fucking life. 

And he’s still apologizing. He’s—he’s going to leave. Harley has to—he has to fix this. Right the fuck now. 

“Fuck, wait—” there’s this jolt, something not really physical but it rocks Harley from the hand he snared Hot Neighbor Boy’s wrist all up and down his spine, makes his stomach flip. “Wait—I, uh, I fucked up. I just—”

There’s a pointed look down at Harley’s grasping hand, a raised eyebrow, and Harley lets go like he’s grabbed his second welding torch of the day. “Sorry,” he mutters, “Don’t go, okay? Sorry for the freak out. I didn’t—I didn’t expect you to recognize what I was working on. Shouldn’t have left it out. I, uh, don’t know if—if I’m allowed to—”

Hot Neighbor Boy’s face clears right up. “If you’re allowed to show it to other people? Good thing to be cautious about. I don’t think you need to worry in this particular case, though—I only recognize it because I’ve worked on similar stuff before. With—with T-tony.”

There’s a question in that name, one Harley was beginning to wonder, too. “So you do know him.” 

“Yeah,” says the boy. “Yeah, I did.” 

There’s a moment where hope flares. If he knows Tony— 

_Yeah, I did._ Knew. Knew Tony.

Gravity takes this cue to suck six times stronger.

“Me too,” whispers Harley, once he can work it past the stone in his throat. And then—“Who _are_ you?”

“I’m—I’m Peter,” he says, and Harley’s brain, which has been entirely useless through this period of time in which he really fucking needed it, decides to latch right onto those two syllables and just—rapturously repeat them. The fuck. 

“I, uh, I dropped the ball on the introductions, didn’t I? Sorry about that. Peter Parker.”

There’s something else triggering about that name, but it’s something tied up with all of the _bye, Tony_ thoughts Harley is getting increasingly expert at pushing away, and there are better things to focus on here. Like how it looks like Hot Neighbor— _Peter_ —might be convinced to stay, after all. 

“So—you’ve worked with this stuff before? Like, at SI, or—”

“I—intern there, sometimes. Or like I did. I think I’ll still be doing some stuff for them. Like...I make Spider-man’s webs. This—is for Spider-man, isn’t it.”

He’s watching Harley carefully, but there’s something—generous, in what he just admitted. He’s putting them on even ground. Harley screwed up, revealed stuff he probably shouldn’t have—Peter did the same. If Harley’s getting in trouble, Peter’s getting in trouble, too. 

And he did it totally on purpose. Harley is getting the distinct impression that of the many things Peter Parker may be, a screw-up really isn’t one of them. 

“Thanks,” Harley says, and he means it so much that his throat almost closes on it. “I still gotta—I gotta tell Ms. Potts. Unless it’s Ms. Stark now?”

“Heh, I’ve been wondering the same thing, I keep meaning to google it—”

“I’m gonna tell her. I gotta own up. And I’ll ask—I want it to be for Spider-man,” Harley admits. “That’s why I went for this casing model. There were a couple other designs but—come on, _Spider-man._ ” He flashes a smirk,deliberately mimicking Peter’s Iron Man fanboy moment, and Peter ducks his head, blushing and laughing. 

Everything in Harley starts to ease. Maybe...maybe things will be okay. 

“We can video-call her,” Peter offers. “She’ll figure out what happened in three seconds or less, I guarantee it. She’ll tell us to be careful about telling anyone else—except Ned, no way I’m keeping this from Ned, not unless she makes me—”

_Ned?_

Oh no.

Oh fuck no.

But of course Peter Parker would already have a boyfriend.It’s against the laws of logic to imagine a person with a brain like that, a body like that, a _smile_ like that, just—not having someone. Bad enough that Harley automatically assumed _boyfriend,_ like he has the reason or right to assume literally anything about gender or sexuality.

“—and then she’s going to say, ‘no fires, no explosions, or I’m telling May’. Did you know there’s a lab in our apartment downstairs, too? Did I tell you that already? May hasn’t let me use it—actually, I think it’s directly under this one, do you think that was on purpose? It has to be. What if there’s like, a secret door between them?” The way he says it, it’s like he’s imagining someone walking in with every toy he ever asked Santa for as a kid. Assuming—no. Harley’s done assuming. But _if_ Peter Parker celebrated, say, Christmas, what would he like Harley to get him?

Wait. Is this a thought he is having? An actual effort of his infamous Keener brain? Though he’s beginning to disbelieve that there was a brain there to begin with. At this point he’s down to this failing network of single neurons, each totally useless, because they’re all busy cruelly imagining the kind of person Peter Parker would date.

Annnnd there’s a conversation he’s meant to be participating in. “A lab?” he echoes. Like the dumbass Abby always says he is. He’s going to double her _How to Spectacularly Screw Up All Chances For Love and Happiness_ list on one wonderful, terrible, pathetically painful day. 

“Yeah! Let’s call Ms. Potts right now,” Peter says, looking ridiculously enthusiastic for someone who just uttered that sentence in a context where they’ve earned actual wrath. “I bet I can talk her into talking to May about my lab—dude, think about it, I really think there might be a door—it could be a _double-decker lab—_ “

_Calling Ms. Potts,_ Miss Karen intones, and Peter jumps and squeaks “Karen?!” as a holographic screen wakes up with live video feed of Peter and Harley. Beaming and bracing, respectively. 

“Oh,” is how Ms. Potts greets them, answering way too soon but already really, truly smiling. “This is one of the sights we were afraid would never— one of the dreams—I’m so glad. In spite of the chill that just ran down my spine with premonitions of the havoc your combined chaos will inevitably cause—Hello, Tony’s boys.”

They stare at her, and each other, and back at her with stammered greetings. 

“So what have you done?” She’s definitely looking for immediate admissions of guilt, but she also looks so, so happy, even if her eyes are tight and tired. “I’m not seeing any major property damage—is that a strategic camera angle, or—?”

“We haven’t destroyed anything,” Peter tells her proudly, then amends, “—yet. But I kinda accidentally saw some stuff Harley was working on—it’s _insanely cool,_ by the way, please please _please_ don’t make him stop doing it—”

“I should have locked everything down before I invited him over,” Harley cuts in, unwilling to let Peter try to take flack for him. Harley Keener is a man who owns up to his own fuck-ups, thank you. “It was—a pretty stupid oversight. I do understand security protocols. Respect them. I know why they’re there. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Hmm, yes, security is a priority,” Ms. Potts says. It looks like she’s pretending to be stern, but Harley estimates that it’s striking about five-hundred-percent less mortal fear than if she actually tried. “Lucky for you hooligans, you have matching security clearances. Tony always wanted to find out what the two of you could do together. Even if the thought is genuinely terrifying. Anyway, it’s okay, Harley, just don’t repeat this with anyone other than Peter, okay?”

He promises. Peter promises too, which seems unnecessary, but whatever. Their shoulders accidentally bump together, and Harley’s amateur hockey team of brain cells is hopelessly distracted.

“Spider-man is counting on you,” Ms. Potts says, and Harley whips back to attention, wondering if this is what winning a medal in the Olympics feels like. “Don’t blow anything up, or I’ll tell May. I have to go, but call me again, okay? Maybe I’ll convince Morgan to say hi next time. Give my best to May, Peter. Harley—I got your note. I’m keeping it. Thank you, sweetheart.” 

She ends the call. They’re left standing there, shoulder to shoulder, awed into stillness. 

“There, see?” says Peter, possibly physically emitting light. Those stupid turns of phrase like ‘brilliant smile’ and ‘eyes that light up a room’ are making sense in a way that feels terrifyingly like being sucker-punched in the gut. “All good!” 

All good. Harley finds that he agrees and disagrees with equal vehemence. 

“Sure,” he says, drawling a little because he needs to think of something to say next. “So, Spider-man. We have official permission to finish up this absolutely wicked mobile force-field generator specifically for Spider-man— _fucking amazing_ —I’m pissed it’s not done already. It would be except…the welding…”

“I’ll weld,” says Peter quickly. 

Harley gives him a look. “Can you, though?”

“Better than you! I’ll even do it without burning a hand off.”

“Prove it,” says Harley, extremely proud of how dry it comes out. Until he can’t breathe, because Peter is looking right at him, incredibly intense and burning challenge, and Harley is so, so fucked. 

Figures that he’d also be giddily, ridiculously happy about his own epic demise. 

* * *

_How to Spectacularly Screw Up All Chances For Love and Happiness Because Your Name is Harley and YOU ARE A DUMBASS_

**-fall in love with Peter Parker** before knowing that's even his name (help)  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, Harley's done for.


	8. brother in the wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another sad one, sorry! Grief is a monster, and our characters were swallowed whole.  
> They'll make it out.

* * *

It's getting worse. Maybe that's normal, for grief, but a week into _worse_ and Pepper Potts, rumored indomitable, cannot move. A week of Morgan’s grief turning monstrous, scared and confused and _hateful,_ and they’re not eating or sleeping and really—really Tony was the one who had to reach rock bottom before even considering calling for help. Pepper knows better, has always known better, has made it through a dozen ends of her world by prioritizing and delegating and moving forward with a determination so deep it’s as much her skeleton the bones she’s built with. She breaks but she mends and in the end, standing tall is just the shape she comes in.

And she could be doing that. Could be neck-deep in solving everyone else’s problems, an entire _world’s_ problems, her own grief packed small and compact into whatever tiny niches might be left over. She’d prefer it that way: distraction is powerful. She would love to reach all the way in, drown in problems so much bigger than she is. 

She can’t do that to Morgan. 

So she doesn’t solve anyone’s problems. Not the world’s, not her own, and certainly not Morgan’s, though she has given everything—really truly everything, and it’s not enough, _not enough—_ trying, for Morgan. 

_I’m not the only widow in the world,_ she tells herself, lying on the floor outside Morgan’s room, too tired to even know what she feels. The thought is meant to...encourage something, be grounding or offer perspective—it doesn’t seem to be working. _Morgan’s not the only little girl grieving. It’s not going to last forever. It’s not going to last forever._

But she doesn’t even know if she can make it through tomorrow. 

“I’m sorry, Tony,” she whispers. Not for this. He would understand this, understand it so deeply an apology would be offensive. For the times _she_ didn’t understand. God, the grief Tony lived through. 

How did he do it? _Couldn’t without you,_ he used to say. It made her feel like she had wings, otherwordly things she could wrap all the way around him. Defy everything that hurt him. 

She never had wings. If she did, she’d give them to their daughter. 

_People live through this. Every day everywhere people endure this… somehow... how, how—_

They started out—not even close to okay, but together, and Pepper will choose _together_ over _okay_ every time. Clinging to each other, Morgan sleeping with all four limbs wrapped tight around her, Pepper weeping to toddler-snores—then swapping out pillows, hers for Tony’s, and getting a little sleep of her own in, too. Waking into circles of their people who lifted and held them, grieving together, working together. Putting together meals. Putting together a funeral. More meals. 

Eventually, though, everyone left. 

Everyone has their own bits of broken life to try to piece together. Everyone has problems. Most of the people who were helping her and Morgan are off solving the problems Pepper would be solving if she wasn’t trying to put Morgan first.

_How? How do people survive this?_

They’re not together anymore. Morgan comforted Pepper first. Death doesn’t make sense to her. Of course Daddy’s coming back. 

A few days in, she gets anxious, demanding, impatient. It’s taking him such a long time to come back. 

She wets the bed a few times. Never sleeps in her own bed, only in Pepper’s. Pepper doesn’t mind. She doesn’t want to sleep alone either. Even changing sheets for the second time in a short night, washing a struggling and tantruming child, getting them both back in bed dry and clean—she doesn’t mind. It’s something to do. 

Weeks pass, and Daddy doesn’t come back. 

Morgan’s not angry at Daddy any more. She seems to accept, finally, _finally,_ that he’s not coming back. That he wanted to—he _wanted to—_ but he isn’t. He can’t. Not ever, not even for Morgan. And she—she stops waiting for him, stops being impatient, but she’s _angry_. 

At Pepper. She’s angry at Pepper. 

Morgan watched her Mama suit up and go off to rescue Daddy. Her eyes were shining, _when I’m big like you I’m coming to!_

Mama failed. 

She stops sleeping in Pepper’s bed. Doesn’t sleep in her own bet, either— _just doesn’t sleep_ except for when she conks out in front of whatever inane youtube unboxing video she’s screamed for Happy to put on this time, or cried herself to sleep in Tony’s chair, or hidden herself in odd, scary places, like the dark crawl-space under the porch. She doesn’t want to bathe, eats only whatever she demands that Happy gives in and gets her—mostly candy, she apparently suddenly hates cheeseburgers—and then she cracks the password for one of lock-boxes in the garage and sets an entire suit of armor crashing into the lake, going through the garage wall and several trees on the way. 

She won’t look at Pepper. 

_I’m sad too,_ Pepper finds herself lockjawed to stop from screaming, _I miss him too! It’s not just you! It’s not just you!_

She has enough self-control to not lose it with her distraught four-year-old…this time. What about next time? She lost her temper with Tony so many times—times he was doing his best, and she _knew_ he was doing his best, and Morgan is a _baby._ Pepper’s baby, and she can’t, she can’t—

She scrolls through her contacts again. Rhodey’s running clean-up—from the final battle and Reversal both, and it’s too big a job for ten Rhodeys, a hundred anyone elses. She can’t call him. Happy is already spending too much time with them, running SI in every second he can spare, running himself ragged because be doesn’t spare any seconds for himself. She needs to lighten his load, not triple it, and he’s the only person she trusts with SI, so—no. No Happy. Natasha is gone. Steve is gone. She’s desperate enough to hit up the literal God of Thunder for babysitting, but Thor’s gone too. 

May has her own grieving kid to hold together. Oh, Peter, _Peter..._

Breathe. She needs to breathe. 

Maybe she should call May. May has been through this. May has lost a husband, been the all that’s left for a kid who has lost who he needs most and—and somehow they both came out of it not just okay, but really, really well. Twice. Pepper expects they’ll make it through this awful third time, too, somehow. It gives her hope, for Morgan, that Peter has lived through everything he has and he’s still so in love with life that it’s hard not to fall in love back. 

Peter was...a miracle, for Tony. A healing miracle. Maybe—maybe it would work like that, even just a tiny bit, with Morgan? She was always Tony’s girl. How many days ago was it, when the boys called her from the workshop? Peter had been smiling. She doesn’t doubt he’s still hurting, still grieving, but he looked like himself. The very best possible thing for that boy to be. 

The problem with Peter is that he doesn’t have any of the boundaries that would let her trust him with _himself_. If he thinks someone needs something of him, he gives it. Doesn’t matter if he needs it. What it will cost him. Tony knew that, was terrified of that, forced distance between them because of it. It wasn’t good. If she brings Peter here, he’ll shoulder all of Morgan’s pain on top of his own, and blame himself for anything he can’t fix, and he’s a kid, a kid, _Tony’s kid._

He’s not Tony’s only kid. Morgan has another maybe-brother waiting in the wings. 

Pepper thinks about it for a long time. Inside her bedroom, Morgan throws what sounds like pillows and stuffed animals at the walls. Not screaming this time, but wailing, a long high desperate whine that makes Pepper’s teeth grind and every bit of her _hurt_. 

_Harley’s a—a kid who fixes things. Myself not excluded. A good kid. Tough kid. You’d like him. You two’ve got a scary amount of personality in common—scary being the key word, here—_

It’s almost like she can hear him—it’s a memory, Tony’s voice, describing, explaining, not-apologizing for yet another bizarre nowhere-Tennessee errand he needs her to run—but it’s _more._ Almost like he’s here, a little bit here, like she’s not alone here on the floor, locked out of their daughter’s room. 

Like wherever Tony is,  _if_ he is, he loves her. She’s probably crazy. But she can breathe. 

_Okay, Tony. Love._

Pepper calls Harley Keener.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COME SAVE YOUR GIRLS HARLEY


	9. Peter Parker’s supernova gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so grateful to the kudos and comments--it's the fuel I need to keep writing when I should be sleeping

* * *

 

            “You’re _sure_ you don’t want to meet Spider-man.”

            “Yeah. Um. Totally sure. Got stuff to do that night, anyway.”

            Harley squints, trying to keep cool through disappointment and confusion. He was so hyped when Miss Karen confirmed an appointment for Spider-man to come try out the Itsy-Bitsy—they’re on Prototype HP-5, and with all the performance tests Peter insisted on running, Harley’s feeling really good about what they’ve built. More than good enough to have Spidey himself give it a go.

            It’s a sweet, sweet feeling, the utter confidence that he’s going to impress a superhero— _help_ a superhero. Not that he should take all the credit—what is Peter _thinking_ , blowing off something like this?

            “Stuff? You’ve got _stuff._ Parker. Do you not believe Spidey’s going to show, or what? You think I’m lying about the time I met him on my roof? He sent a text confirming—”

            “He’ll show,” Peter says immediately, that one insanity-provoking curl flopping into his eyes as he looks up to face Harley. “He keeps commitments.”

            Well that sounds like there’s a personal story or two he’s telling. “Just like you, huh,” Harley says, and he didn’t mean to bite it out quite like that, but he’s just—it’s disappointing. Really fucking disappointing. As excited as he was about this, Peter was supposed to be even _more_ excited. It’s Peter. They’ve been working on this project for two weeks—ten hours straight, some days—and Harley definitely spent a lot of those hours imagining what Peter would look like putting Itsy-Bitsy through its moves for Spider-man. How he’d be all fired up and talking too fast, so enthusiastic he’d probably literally be bouncing and—okay, so Harley was more excited about eager-Peter than he was about _Spider-man._ Which is pathetic, but Peter’s really letting him down here.

            To think he’d wasted energy wondering if he needed to be jealous. If not just the mysterious but ever-anecdotally-present Ned, who sounds like a genuinely wonderful person, but an actual superhuman world-saving _hero_ stands as competition for Peter’s time and possible affection.

            “Actually I’m kind of the worst when it comes to being where I’m supposed to be,” Peter says blithely, though the sharp catch of his eyes on Harley’s means he’s definitely not missing things Harley would really rather he miss. As usual. He doesn’t take advantage of it—also as usual.

            Peter Parker is too fucking nice.

            “You telling me you’re a flake?”

            “Pretty much everyone who knows me would tell you that,” Peter says, and he’s doing that thing again, like he’s making fun of himself, but on an inside-joke level only _Ned_ would get.

            And Harley’s not convinced. Like really, really not convinced. He trusts his gut, and his gut tells him that Peter doesn’t let much of anything stop him from being where he wants to be. “I can ask Miss Karen if Spidey can reschedule,” he says slowly. “Come on, man, we worked too hard on this not to see it in action.”

            “You can’t ask Spider-man to reschedule! Pretty sure he’s busy almost all the time—just tell me about it after, okay?”

            “You got a problem with Spider-man?”

            Peter’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “This like when you asked me if I had a problem with country music? Which you _love?_ ”

            Harley grins. “Yeah, you got me. Only about loving country, though. It was the soundtrack of my womb, man, I can’t help it.”

            “You just like messing with me,” Peter accuses, incandescently indignant, and Harley so, so badly wants to kiss him.

            _Bad brain._ “Maybe. Stop avoiding though. What’s your deal with Spider-man?” He’s not messing around with this question, and it must show, because Peter gets a whole lot cagier.

            “What deal? There’s no deal. I’m a fan! Big fan. Maybe the Number One fan.”

            “Nah, that’s Miss Karen. She told me.”

            _I am Spider-man’s Number One Fan,_ Miss Karen intones on cue, _others who want that spot can fight me._

            Peter’s eyebrows go way, way up. Harley almost falls off his chair laughing.

            “I love you, Miss Karen,” he tells the ceiling. “For real, though, Pete. What’d Spidey ever do to you?” Because if there is something, Harley may have to reconsider his own personal favorite superhero rankings. Iron Man will always be on top, of course, but depending on the tea Peter spills, slot number two may suddenly be open.

            “Nothing!”

            Harley does not believe him.

            “Okay, fine, he—it wasn’t purpose, he was just doing his job,  but—it’s totally Spider-man’s fault I don’t have a girlfriend. Hottest girl in school—and not just hot, she’s like, incredible, super-smart and so dedicated and she never made fun of anyone and—anyway she—she agreed to go out with me, I honestly still can’t believe it? Anyway Spider-man crashed our date. Like literally. Everything went up in flames. It was traumatic, man. She—she moved to Oregon.”

            Oh.

            She. Girlfriend. Girl. Right. Right, he was totally ready for this. Peter likes girls. That’s normal. It’s statistically probable. _Harley_ is the outlier here.

            “Anyway, I, uh, it’s best for everyone if I avoid Spider-man,” Peter says, peaking at Harley to see how his story is going over, cringing a bit at whatever he sees. “Pathetic, right? I’m...yeah. But that’s just how it’s going to be.”

            Part of Harley is thinking that something here doesn’t add up. The rest of him is trying to put back together enough pieces of his heart to keep blood circulating to his brain so he can give some kind of response.

            “Sorry,” Peter mumbles, when Harley takes too long. What does he even have to be sorry for?

            “Stop apologizing,” Harley snaps. Too harsh. He didn’t mean to say it like that. But there’s suddenly more space between him and Peter, because Peter always flinches away from even the beginnings of anger, and distance—distance is probably a good thing. “Whatever, Parker. I’ll keep Spidey for myself. Been a while since I hung out with someone cool anyway.”

            It’s such a stupid thing to say. Too stupid to make Peter’s face...do that. Harley feels sick, chest sharp with stupid shards of shattered hope, gut twisting with guilt because he didn’t want to make Peter feel bad. He never wants Peter to feel bad.

            _And that’s what you do, Keener. You screw up._

            “Right, well...shall we get this thing packed up?” Not like there’s much to pack. A tiny robotic spider the size of Harley’s thumbnail, an ever smaller hardware-plugin to integrate Itsy-Bitsy with a Suit, and the tiny titanium box Harley stayed up all night designing to present and story Itsy-Bitsy in.

            Peter nestles Itsy-Bitsy in the box, Harley engages the lid and its seal, and for a moment the two of them just—sit there, pretending things don’t feel as weird as they do. Peter keeps trying to read him without directly looking at him, like he’s trying to figure out what the hell Harley’s problem is.

            Not the hell Peter’s problem, that’s what it is.

            “Nice work, Parker,” Harley says, rallying against stupid angst and deserved guilt to hold out a hand to shake. It really was good work. Incredible work. The things Peter can do in a workshop—all Harley can do is feel desperately grateful that he can even keep up.

            Probably should avoid spending too much time in the workshop, though. At least until he...gets some stuff under control.

            Peter’s hand fits into his, strong, cool against his skin.  “We’re a good team,” Peter says, half-hopeful and half-cautious, watching Harley with eyes that always see too much.

            “Sure,” says Harley. Lets go.

            Peter leaves. Stops and looks at him twice on his way out, like he wants to say something, ask something, but in the end he just goes.

            Harley decides this is as good a time as any to go beat up himself and the punching bag in their building’s gym.

* * *

            Spider-man loves the Itsy-Bitsy. He comes prepared with a paintball gun loaded with neon pellets, which he hands over to Harley with emphatic gestures to shoot away.

            Excellent. Harley has a few feelings to therapeutically shoot out. Spidey looks a little taken aback at the aggression, actually, but he flips and dodges and Itsy-Bitsy does the rest and not a single pellet hits the hero himself, which is good on all counts. Harley takes in his now nearly-fluorescent roof and chooses not to think about how difficult it might be to wash paint out of...whatever Spidey’s amazingly skin-tight suit is made out of it.

            Spider-man is so enthusiastic, in fact, that he reminds Harley of Peter.

            “Looks like it works,” Harley says abruptly, just as Spidey seems to be gearing up for another round of pantomimes. Harley knows the dude can talk—he’s infamous for it—but for whatever reason, he doesn’t talk to Harley. “I gotta go. Shoot a text if anything comes up—it’s still a prototype, I’m sure there’ll be things to improve. Cheers to saving the world and all that.”

            He leaves Spidey on the roof and doesn’t look back.

* * *

            He tells Peter he wants to work on his own stuff for a bit. Peter looks hurt, but all he says is, “Yeah, okay, cool,” and it’s like—like this is something he expected all along, though he’s clearly not happy about it. Harley really wants to find _something_ to blame on Peter, but in the end all he finds is more to blame on himself.

            Stupid hormones. Stupid gay hormones. But it’s okay. He’s going to get this crush under control, and then he’s going to find a way to make everything up to Peter—a bunch of ways, all the ways—because even if he’s struggling at the moment, he wants to be Peter’s friend more than he wants to not have to deal with everything else he wants with Peter.

            He spends a lot of time in the gym. Peter never goes to the gym.

* * *

           Ms. Potts calls. He can tell she’s been crying.

* * *

            Ms. Parker answers within seconds of his urgent knocking, but Harley’s visibly vibrating with impatience anyway, and her eyebrows shoot right up.

            “I need Peter!”

            Her entire body shifts into _oh really?_ attitude, and Harley is hit with regret. She’s not even trying to look like she’s not laughing at him. Also definitely judging him. “Do you now?”

            _Nice one, Keener._

            Nothing to do but roll with it. “I do,” he says, really hoping his confidence sounds less fake than it feels, “I’m driving up to help Ms. Potts. At least I’m going to try. I need Peter to come with me. Uh...please?”

            “Pepper? Is she okay? Come in—”

            “Is that Harley?” Peter’s voice. And then Peter, sliding into the room like his socks are skates, a little lego ship in one hand. “Oh, hey, dude!”

             He looks surprised—and _happy_ —to see him, and it ratchets Harley’s guilt up another notch. Peter goes from ttiny-hopeful-smile to tracking Harley’s gaze to the legos in his hand, and promptly hides it behind his back, blushing all the way up to his amazingly expressive eyebrows (Harley will protect those eyebrows with his life—and that is _exactly_ the kind of thought he should not be having). Also Harley’s face is gonna hurt if he doesn’t get this stupid spreading grin under control, because he was ready for a lot of things, but openly happy Peter wasn’t one of them—isn’t what he deserves.

            He’ll take it.

            “I was, uh, video-chatting with Ned,” Peter says, holding up his phone like he needs to prove it. “Speaking of—Ned, dude, sorry, I gotta go!” he says the last facing his phone, _makes a finger gun_ for its camera. With the same hand holding the lego ship. Boy’s got skills.

            Harley has never wanted someone to shoot him finger guns before. Finger guns are—finger guns are something even little baby bullied Harley was too cool to do.

            He also knows he’s going to end up practicing finger guns in the mirror. _Damn you, Peter Parker._

            “Okay, boys, focus,” Ms. Parker says, and she’s still totally laughing. On the inside. “What’s going on with Pepper, Harley?”

            Yes. Focus. There are things to fix. “She—it’s Morgan,” he says, pauses, has to be careful. This isn’t really his to share. Still—if anyone, _anyone_ can be trusted here, it’s the woman who protects Peter so well he can be—well, Peter. “Morgan, she’s—she knows—she gets that he’s not coming back.” Oh. Oh no. Peter’s face. This is...this is selfish. He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have come. Should have dealt with it alone. _Too late._ “At least I expect that’s what’s happened. Ms. Potts didn’t say much but—just that Morgan’s mad, at her I mean, and I don’t think—didn’t look like either of them have been sleeping. She said Morgan won’t talk to her. I remember what my sister was like when my dad—my dad didn’t come back. I promised I’d help. At least try. I’m driving up today.”

            “Good idea,” Ms. Parker says, and everything about her has flipped—there’s no teasing now. She just looks ready to help. “Grief is—it does things. Messed up things. We—” the way she looks at Peter is so, so heavy, weighted with things Harley knows nothing about, apart from recognizing that it’s personal, paid for with pain, incredibly precious—“have been there. A few times now. Do you...do you want to go, Peter? You don’t have to. You know that, baby?”

            “Of course I’ll go,” says Peter. He’s in pajama pants, still has that lego ship in his hand, but something about the way he says it—the way his jaw sets—makes Harley feel like he unknowingly recruited an army. “You leaving now?”

            “Soon as I can, yeah,” Harley answers, shocked that Peter is so willing—Harley has kind of been a dick to him, avoiding him like he has, then showing up the moment he needs help. Definitely a dick move.

            But he _needs_ Peter. Peter is good. Peter is kind. Peter is unfailingly sensitive, in ways that must be pretty painful, honestly; definitely in ways Harley can’t be. Peter has a billion percent higher chance of being what Morgan needs. Honestly he doesn’t know why Ms. Potts asked Harley instead of going straight to Peter. He’d asked her if he could invite Peter too, and she'd said, _Well, are you up for taking care of him, too? I don’t think I can, Harley, and I’ve asked too much of you already—_ and Harley really doesn’t get it. He was plenty happy to promise to take care of Peter, though, and Ms. Potts didn’t push after that.

            Peter rushes off to pack.

            “He thought you were avoiding him,” Ms. Parker says, spearing Harley with that intent, super-intimidating intelligence that tends to double Harley’s heart-rate when it comes from Peter. His heart’s not faring too well right now, either, though for very different reasons.

            “I kinda was,” Harley says, because a frantic mental rundown of possible deflections sounds even more pathetic than the truth. “I had a...reason. Nothing he did. My own issues. Right.” It takes guts to keep squarely meeting her eyes, but he does it. There are lots of hard things he needs to do if he wants things to be okay with Peter. He’s determined to do every single one of them.

            And this time, at least, it seems to work. Ms. Parker looks _into his very soul_ a moment longer, then reaches out—smiles—her hand is so soft on his shoulder. Soothing. Comforting. “Okay,” she says. “How are you boys getting there? Happy’s been so busy; maybe I could drive. I’m pretty sure I can be back in time—”

            “I’m driving,” Harley says quickly. “I have a car. And, uh—a license, lots of driving experience, I swear—”

            “I believe you,” Ms. Parker says, smile quirking wider. “I’ll probably still drive up too, but it’s good that it can wait a couple days. Gives me time to get everything okayed at work.”

            “How many days are we staying?” Peter shouts from somewhere down the hall.

            “Like, two? Maybe more—”

            “Pack for four,” Ms. Parker says. “I’ll bring up more stuff if you need it. You already packed, Harley?”

            “Yeah. I’m ready whenever.” He was ready twenty minutes before he got the courage to knock, actually. His stuff is already all packed in the car, because he almost left without finding out if Peter would give him the time of day, let alone agree to come.

            Peter bounds back into the room looking ready to take on the world and simultaneously thrilled to do it. Harley forces himself to stop staring. Takes him a second or two, but he does it.

            He can do this. He can be in Peter Parker’s supernova gravity and not show emotions no one wants him to have. He can be a normal, decent, totally-aware-of-all-boundaries friend.

            He might not be able to do much about what how being around Peter makes him feel, but he’s done the field test. Knows for a fact that he’d rather work to control his reactions to Peter than just...not get close enough to Peter to react.

            “Ready?” he asks. He’s not, but he can totally fake it.

            “Born ready,” Peter says, incredibly unabashed, including when he wraps Ms. Parker up in a giant hug that Harley tries really hard not to be envious of. “Love you, May. Bye!”

              _You got this, Keener._

            “Hang on, Baby Stark,” Peter announces in the elevator. “Your A Team is coming. Dude, I can’t wait to see your car.”

            “If you start singing Baby Shark—”

            He’s already doing it. He’s humming Baby Shark. They haven’t even reached the garage yet.

            _Damn you, Peter Parker._

* * *

 

 


	10. that was close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> endless love for the comments. Thanks for being here for this <3

* * *

 

            Peter was weird about Spider-man, and maybe that was what made Harley not want him around.

            He keeps going over the conversation in his head. As far as he can tell, he didn’t say anything that would reasonably cue the kind of disgust kids at school so often react to Peter with—not that he has ever been able to predict that with any kind of accuracy. He only ever figures out what is and isn’t cool after the fact.

            A lot of things that turn out to be cool are decidedly not-awesome in Peter’s book, so he didn’t work too hard at cracking that code. When Harley’s open face shut on him, though, he wished he’d worked a whole lot harder and figuring social norms out. He definitely did _something._

            He misses working in the lab with Harley with the same gutting regret he misses just about everything from before the Snap, and that just makes him angry, because he didn’t—he didn’t have to lose Harley. There’s nothing he can do, _nothing he can do_ about every other loss, but this one—this one was avoidable.

            He just can’t figure out _how._

            He asks May if she thinks he should tell Harley the truth about Spider-man. She says it’s up to him, of course, but he watches conflict play across her face so expressively that he wonders if this is what Ned is talking about, when he says he can literally see Peter processing. _I don’t know, baby,_ she says. _Happy trusts him, and that goes a long way in my book. You being more open about, well, everything—that’s something I’d love to see, Pete. You keep too much too close. It hurts you._

            Peter keeps secrets for really, really good reasons. But he can’t deny the _it hurts you_ part.

            His days stretch, echoing-empty. He spends hours on the phone with Ned, texting when they aren’t videochatting, but Ned Snapped, and his family didn’t. They watched him turn to dust. They lived for five years without him.

            They got him back, and they’re never letting him out of their sight again.

            “I mean, I’m registering for school, they’ve got to let me go by then,” Ned says, a bit worn down by the constant overwhelming fear-plus-affection.

            School starts in August. It’s _May._

            Peter tries going to Ned’s house a couple times, but the air there is so thick with hovering love that he just feels awkward. Like he’s in the way no matter how he stands or talks or sticks to the sidelines.

            They go back to video-chatting. Peter is grateful that May Snapped with him all over again.

            He texts back and forth with MJ. They don’t meet up, not after the first time. They don’t videochat. MJ is twenty-one now. She runs five separate community programs, gets people food and medical care and into safe homes, literally saves lives. Has been doing this for five years. Her eyes go way too soft when she looks at Peter—like she’s not MJ at all.

            That hurts, too.

            Peter tries patrolling. It’s...a work in progress. He’s basically desensitizing himself to the suit. He has a progress chart and everything. Within six-to-eight weeks, following current trends, he should be able to wear it for up to 120 minutes at a time without crying.

            Every patrol brings post-Snap horror...sometimes hope. Sometimes even humor. He witnesses a lot of reunions, and learns that there is no one way people react to seeing someone they thought they’d never see again. He tries to track down the owners of pets who reappear in neighborhoods their families long since left. He sits with a lot of people going through public panic attacks. He’s getting pretty good at dealing with those, thanks to many hours of research and more personal experience than he would wish on anyone.

            He misses Harley.

 

* * *

 

            The drive is quiet so far. Peter keeps stealing glances at Harley as he drives, a little thrill of combined hope and anxiety raising goosebumps each time. He wants to start a conversation—he’s missed Harley’s voice, the easy back-and-forth problem-solving they’d get into in the lab, even the pretty merciless teasing Harley slips into sometimes.

            He’s afraid, though. Afraid he’ll accidentally do whatever it was that made Harley avoid him. He feels extra awkward trying to sit still, strapped to his seat, nothing productive to do with his hands—nothing productive to do with his brain.

            “Pete, you okay?”

            He startles. Glances down at himself, trying to see what he’s doing to earn concern. Bouncing his knee? Gripping the shoulder strap too tight where it crosses his chest? “I’m good,” he offers, almost like a question. Makes his leg stay still, makes his fist open. There are lines across his palm where the edges of the strap striped his skin. “—You?” It’s lame. He’s lame. He wishes he knew the safe topics, automatic tension breakers like he uses with Ned—but he doesn’t know Harley well enough to even guess. Everything they’ve already talked about in those two weeks in the lab is flagged unsafe—he doesn’t know what part of it made Harley not want him there.

            Harley watches him for a moment before answering, then turns his eyes back to the road. They’re about twenty minutes out of the city. It’s just getting dark enough for the street lights to flick on. “I’m kinda stressed,” Harley says slowly, and Peter gives him his full attention, hope for actual conversation growing. “Like, when we get there—I don’t know what to do. Whatever I can, obviously, but. Some things just can’t be fixed, you know?”

            “Yeah,” says Peter. Air that’s been trapped in too-tight lungs breathes free, lets oxygen in. “I’m scared, to be honest. I don’t—the only time I've been there was for the funeral, and everything felt so weird—missing five years and—like every little change brought the shock all over again. And then. And then Mr.—Mr. Stark. I don’t really...want to go back there. I think it's good that we are, though.”

            “Did you always call him that?” Harley’s voice is rough in a way Peter hasn’t heard before. Not aggressive or abrasive, just—unsettled. Aching.

            “Yeah, mostly, I—he told me to call him Tony, but it felt weird. He was my hero since I was a kid, you know?”

            “Mine, too.”

             It goes quiet again, Harley focused on switching lanes and merging onto the interstate, but then he picks the conversation back up and Peter breathes deeply again.

            “I mostly called him Old Man. Or whatever else would make him roll his eyes. Doctor Who, Q, Wannabe-Watney.”

            Peter snorts, and Harley’s mouth tips into a bit of a grin, and everything starts to feel better. Especially when Harley moves the conversation along without waiting for Peter to mess it up.

            “So for now my primary Be Good and Helpful strategy is to be a distraction. Do something to distract Morgan from whatever cycle she’s in, you know? I’m not above literal clowning around. Or wearing a tiara and hosting a tea party. You in, Parker?”       

            “With a tiara? Hell yes.”

            Another long look from Harley, all warm this time, grin growing. “Now that’s a pretty mental picture.” And then he freezes.

            “Tch. Don’t hate me for being beautiful, Keener. A bit of eyeshadow, a touch of mascara, we can get you there, too.”

            Harley’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and Peter’s heart is beating hard, wondering if he took things entirely the wrong direction. Everything was relaxed, and then it wasn’t, and Harley doesn’t seem to be mad at him, but—

            “I’ll have you know I look incredible in eyeliner,” Harley drawls, and his fists ease, one hand reaching up like he’s flicking flowing locks over his shoulder. “Abby went through this stage where she was determined to be a professional make-up person—she had a youtube channel and everything—”

            “Please tell me there are videos of you getting makeovers. Please, please tell me—”

            “You’ll never find them.”

            “You underestimate the power of summer boredom,” Peter says. “Hey, this is a good song—”

            Harley turns the volume up.

 

* * *

 

            At some point, Peter falls asleep. He doesn’t mean to. Doesn’t really believe that it happened—that he felt safe enough for it to happen—but he’s waking up, all the hairs on his arms standing on end.

            Danger. They’re in danger.

            Harley’s driving slowly, straight-backed rather than slouched comfortably in his seat like he was before, and it’s pretty obvious why—it’s raining so hard, so thick, that almost nothing’s visible through the windshield. The wipers are working like crazy, and Harley’s got the brights on, but they could be five meters from an overturned semi or fallen tree or a patch of washed-out road and have no way to know it.

            “Slow down,” Peter begs, spider-sense itching under his skin, stomach flipping. It could just be the rain, or--

            “We’re going slow,” Harley says, irritable. “We’re thirty miles out, if we can just get there—welcome back to the land of the conscious, by the way—”

            “Pull over,” Peter says. “Please, Harley, pull over.”

            Harley opens his mouth like he’s going to tell Peter not to be an idiot, but then he looks at him, short and sharp—ten seconds later, they’re slowing to a complete stop on the side of the road.

            The engine shuts off. The pounding of the rain, dissonant chords struck thousands of times per second on metal and class and asphalt and the million leaves of endless dark trees lining the road—it’s all overwhelming. He squeezes his eyes shut, clamps his hands over his ears, tries to breathe calmly enough to sift through too-much to get to what he needs to protect them from.

            "Pete, what—"

            Lightning glows his eyelids red. Thunder hits in the same heartbeat, so close and so loud he's taken hits to the head less painful—

            “Fuck, that was close.” Harley’s not even talking at full volume, but his voice clashes with the ringing in Peter’s ears, and he shakes his head like a dog, trying to force clarity. They’re still not safe, he has to—he has to—

            Wait. Wait, he’s not getting those sixth-sense danger cues anymore. Everything’s just too loud, his own pulse a punishing rush in his ears, and he doesn’t dare open his eyes, but hopefully—hopefully there’s nothing to fight. Spidey-senses would still be tingling, if he needed to fight.

            He doesn’t want to fight. He wants to be normal. He wants to not freak out Harley.

            Fuck.

            “Tell me what to do, Peter. Tell me how to help. C’mon, Pete, please, give me something here, I’m scared.”

            _Harley._ Something warm and aching in his chest, Peter peels one hand away from an ear, wincing unshielded in the cacophany and water-on-metal—reaches towards Harley, inch by inch, eyes still shut tight. If they’re open when lightning strikes—“Can I—just—hold on to you or—sorry, I’m sorry—”

            Two hands on his before he's even got all the words out, firm and calloused and _warm._ The contrast makes Peter shiver. With the car stopped and the heat off, he’s getting cold fast.

            Well. Double fuck. He’s overstimulated _and_ getting chilled. Having something to fight might actually be an improvement, at this point.

            “You cold? Your fingers are freezing, hang on, here—”

            Harley lets go of his hand just as the pressure was getting grounding, and Peter chokes on the protest he won’t let himself make. There’s movement, the hushing rub of rustling cloth, and then something warm drops onto his lap.

            “Put it on,” Harley orders. “You need help?”

            He opens his eyes just enough to see that Harley’s arms are bare, and the grey hoodie he’d been wearing is the weight on Peter’s lap.

            Peter hesitates, then pulls it on. It’s deliciously warm, makes him shudder harder, and he can only hope that the night they’re parked in is dark enough to hide his blush.

            “Still want something to hold on to?”

            Harley’s holding his hand out. Shame and gratitude hit together, so fast and thick nausea oozes up between.

            He holds Harley's hand. Focuses on breathing. Ten breaths in, and the pelting of every individual raindrop starts morphing into the kind of background roar his brain knows how to filter, like traffic and trains and scratching pencils at school. Lightning hits again, and thunder, and he can’t stop the flinch but he can keep breathing, just breathing. Eighteen breaths, and being in his body stops hurting quite so much.

             Harley’s hand feels...nice. Really nice. He doesn’t want to let go, which is weird. He should definitely let go. He looks up cautiously, trying to gauge what Harley might be thinking, but his face is turned away, staring at the rain on the window. There are veins standing out on his bare arm from the grip he has on Peter’s hand, and Peter’s eyes get caught there for a moment—smooth muscle and tiny pale hairs and the occasional freckle, catching light from streetlamps barely visible through the storm. Details Peter probably wouldn’t have processed, if he wasn’t hyper-aware in the moment.

            He doesn’t let go, and Harley doesn’t let go, and minutes pass with rain raging and Peter’s senses slowly settling and then, low and sweet and maybe not entirely conscious—Harley humming.

            Affection seeps inside-out as warmth from Harley’s hoodie soaks outside-in, until Peter feels so soft and helpless with it that it actually gets a little scary. If he does whatever it is he did to make Harley push him away again, it’s going to hurt triple what it did the first time.

            Slowly, with a final grateful squeeze, he untangles his hand. Pulls away. Smiles at Harley as he finally turns to look at him again, lips pressed together, eyes guarded. “I’m okay now,” Peter tells him. “Thanks to you. I, uh—sorry. Again.”

            Harley looks him over like he needs to decide for himself if Peter is okay. “Getting warm?”

            “Yeah. This a magic sweatshirt or something? It feels amazing.” As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t. It’s the kind of thing a little kid would say, it’s silly—

            “Keep it and find out,” Harley says, lips twitching towards the smirk Peter has missed. He turns back towards the window. “I think the rain’s easing up. You okay with driving again?”

            The spidey-sense is entirely quiet. There’s—something else going on in its place, like the opposite of alarm, something that makes Peter feels like there’s a little kitten curled up on his chest, purring—“Yeah, I’m good if you’re good,” he says. Adjusts in his seat, stares out into the rain.

            Harley starts the car again, quietly turning up the heat a couple degrees. He doesn’t look cold, even in a t-shirt, and Peter suspects he’s not doing it for himself.

            They drive half the speed limit, watching rain streaming through headlight-beams. Two minutes in, Harley hits the brakes.

            Something’s blocking half the road. They inch closer, trying to make it out—the spidey-sense is still quiet, but—half a tree fills a lane and a half, blackened and smoking. On the side of the road, the rest of it is still standing—and smoldering.

            Harley swears under his breath. “The lightning—right after we’d stopped—musta been this one. The one that hit this tree. That really was close. Fucking fuck _fuck_ , that was close.”

            Very, very carefully, they edge around it.

            It’s smooth driving after that. They see only a handful of cars going either direction, and by the time Karen’s directing Harley to turn off onto the unmarked side road that leads to the hidden Stark home, the rain is more of a drizzle than a downpour. Harley rolls down their windows a bit, and Peter wonders what the hell he’s doing—until he hears him breathing in, long and deep, and then: “I missed this smell. You have no idea how much I’ve missed smelling, like, real dirt and trees and—breathe that in, Parker. This is what you’re missing in New York City.”

            It smells too green and deep and _rich,_ to the point that it almost burns Peter’s nose, but for some reason Peter really likes it anyway.  _Because Harley likes it,_ a part of brain is definitely going to ignore supplies.

            It feels like the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere when they roll up to the house. Only one of those is true—it’s only after ten. The windows flood light, making patches of drizzling rain sparkle, and everything looks and feels so different from the one other, awful time Peter came here that it’s a lot easier to get out of the car, to stand tall and steady, than he feared it would be.

            They grab their stuff out of the trunk and hurry to the porch. Harley’s got tiny beads of water in his hair and on his eyelashes and he’s bracing his shoulders and setting his jaw and Peter realizes, with sudden, awkward confusion, that he’s staring.

            Ms. Potts pulls the door open. “You made it,” she breathes, and she looks equally exhausted and relieved. “I was worrying about you, in that storm. Come in, come in, and _thank you._ Thank you for being here—”

            She puts an arm around each them, squishing the three of them together, and any doubt that he should be here evaporates.

            “Thanks for letting us come,” he says, grateful and glad. “We want—we _want_ to help.”

            “I’ll take all the help I can get. I didn’t want ask. But I—just seeing you here, you're helping already. Come on, there’s a lasagna keeping warm in the oven, salad in the fridge, an entire box of specialty cookies from that one bakery everyone’s always going on about on instagram flown in by drone. Morgan’s asleep, thankfully. Slept right through the storm. She’ll be her own storm in the morning.”

            It feels right. Peter doesn’t understand how anything could feel right, here in Tony’s house that Tony will never come home to. Sitting next to Harley who was a stranger and then a friend and then avoided him for two weeks, who just had to deal with Peter losing it because of some rain and lightning. Ms. Potts watching them eat, but not touching any food herself. Nothing should be right, be any kind of okay—but it _is_.

            They’re here. They’re together. They’re trying.

            He peeks over the top of the couch before following Harley to the guest room to get some sleep. Sees Tony’s daughter, thick dark hair tangled a mass around her head, drooling on a embroidered decorative cushion.

            She’s the most beautiful little human he’s ever seen. Five lost years was worth it, he thinks, if it means Morgan Stark can exist.

            “Coming, Pete?” Harley’s halfway up the stairs, waiting.

            He hasn’t said anything about Peter’s meltdown in the car. No questions. No probing looks. It’s...too good to be true, probably. 

            They have to share a room while they’re here. Peter didn’t quite think that through before agreeing to come. He can’t trust himself around his nightmares. He’s woken on the ceiling more than once. The only good thing about how pathetic Peter has been today, he thinks, is that there is zero chance of Harley wondering if he’s bunking with Spider-man for the night. Whatever Harley must think of Peter right now, _strong_ and _hero_ would only appear as antonyms.

            Harley waits until Peter’s on the step just under his, then leads the rest of the way up. He whispers questions to Friday as they change for bed, getting multiple promises from the AI to wake them if Morgan wakes, or an intruder appears, or Ms. Potts decides to go out.

            “Hey, Pete,” Harley whispers, once they’re both washed up and settled in bed. “Thanks for coming.”

            “Thanks for bringing me.”

            “Anytime. Sweet dreams, yeah?”

            Peter huffs a laugh. “Let’s hope.”

            “You’re welcome to cuddle in with me if you’re scared of the dark.”

            “Shut up and sleep, Harley.”

            Peter doesn’t have nightmares that night. He dreams happy dreams, dreams of working on a new suit with Tony. Wakes up to sunshine and birds making a racket and Harley snuffle-snoring and his cheeks wet from crying.


	11. the best waffles in the world

 

* * *

 

Peter comes into the kitchen just as Harley is tipping the first waffle out of the waffle-maker, and he’s sweaty and red-eyed with hair falling into his face and he brings the smells of forest-after-rain in with him, and it’s safe for Harley to stare for moment because Peter—Peter definitely only has eyes for that waffle. 

“It’s yours,” Harley tells him, only laughing a little. Puts the plate in automatically reaching hands, goes to find a fork and knife and syrup to go with it. When he turns around with the utensils, Peter is looking at him like Harley just handed him Felix Felicis or something. “If you look at everyone who feeds you with eyes like—” Harley starts slowly, still not quite slowly enough for his brain to be more involved with the words than with _Peter—_ “you must get people tripping over themselves to cook for you. Heh. Guess you are kinda smart. Come on, sit down, we’re in a billionaire’s home, we can’t stand to eat like barbarians.”

_Stand to eat like barbarians_ is something Mom says when she catches Harley eating plain cheese with the fridge door wide open or chomping pickles and drinking the pickle juice over the sink or sticking his head down a ripped-open bag of corn chips because he’s got motor oil on his hands and he doesn’t want to pause long enough to wash it off when he’s just going to stick his hands right back into that engine but he’s suddenly so hungry he can’t see straight. 

Used to say. 

“Thanks,” says Peter, voice and mouth both small and warm, and the waffle maker starts beeping because it’s been sitting hot without batter in it too long, and Harley spins around swearing but also insanely grateful because he might never have stopped looking at Peter’s mouth if the freaking waffle maker hadn’t reminded him that _everything else in the universe_ existed. 

Fuck. 

His swearing makes Peter laugh—well, something makes Peter laugh, and Peter laughing makes big giant bubbles of giddy gladness push all the air out of Harley’s chest, and he spills waffle batter all over trying to pour a second waffle. 

He cleans up the spilled batter and gets himself a cup of orange juice but before he can drink it he notices the syrup still standing on the counter, so he grabs it to hand to Peter, but Peter’s waffle is already gone. 

Harley is actually impressed. “I thought only Abby ate that fast,” he says, eyebrows up, and Peter looks at his empty plate and then up at Harley and blushes like he’s done something wrong. Eating a waffle totally dry, no butter or syrup or Nutella or whatever—that’s somewhere between sad and gross, but in no universe is it wrong. Also, Harley has exactly zero room to judge others about eating foods in weird (efficient!) ways. “Twenty-five seconds til the next one’s ready,” he says, eyes on the little digital countdown on the waffle maker and hoping to be reassuring, which is weird because it’s a fucking waffle but—it’s also Peter. 

He uses half of those seconds to dig out the second waffle maker he found in the same drawer Friday told him he’d find the first one in. Pulls the batter recipe back up on his phone, because he figures the first batch might not even be enough to feed Peter. ‘Serves 8’, it says. Eight Peter-bites, maybe.

He makes sure Peter has the syrup next to his plate once he’s loaded it up with the second waffle. Peter looks up and thanks him and Harley turns around to cook more waffles half-blinded, because the smile Peter Parker just gave him was like the fucking _sun_. 

He’s not getting over this. He needs to, and he’s—he’s _trying_ , but—it was never going to happen. There’s a moment, standing over two busy waffle machines, eyes pointed at the batter recipe on his phone but not actually seeing anything because he’s not in his body, he’s on some sort of astral plane where his entire existence loops out in front of him and he knows: he might live to a hundred-and-freaking-ten, but he, Harley Keener, will never, ever be over Peter Parker. 

Not that he wants to be. 

A waffle maker beeps and he peels a perfectly golden breakfast confection out of it and pours just the right amount of batter into it and Peter’s plate is full again and two seconds later the second waffle maker beeps and that one’s perfect too and, like stepping into a cold shower after a hard workout, comes acceptance. A certain amount of dread, sure, because being in love with a straight boy is going to _suck_ , but: it is what it is. Harley Keener loves Peter Parker. He’ll learn to live around it. 

Might as well have a good soundtrack to go with the catastrophe-in-motion. “Hey, Fri, you got my playlists from Karen? Yeah? Sun Up playlist, thanks for being awesome.”

_You’re welcome, Potato Gun Son,_ she says, and he shuts his eyes as he laughs because he also might cry. If he catches Peter sending him concerned looks while he starts measuring out flour and salt and sugar and baking powder for the second batch of waffle batter, it’s probably just because the first song on this playlist is country and Peter’s a total city boy, musical tastes skewed accordingly. 

By the time he’s beating in buttermilk and eggs and melted butter, his eyes aren’t blurry, his heart has mostly stopped trying to kick-box its way past his sternum, and Peter’s eaten four more waffles, so. He’s calling this _victory._

Approximately one billion willpower battles to go. 

The second batch proves to be a truly excellent idea when Peter freezes and Harley follows his wide eyes to see a little dark head peeking over the counter next to him, and then big beautiful brilliant _familiar_ brown eyes peering cautiously up at him, and a bossy little voice informs him: “I like waffles.”

“Want the next one?”

Morgan Stark nods imperiously, and Harley reaches for another plate. 

“Not _that_ one—”

The flashes of kindergarten-age Abby are hitting fast and hard. “You got a special plate, sweetheart?”

“Yes. The octopus one.”

“You know where it is?”

She stares at him in challenge, like the true test of his virtue is an instinctive knowledge of where to find an octopus plate. Should he ask Friday? Would that be cheating? Ms. Potts said Morgan hadn’t been eating well. He needs to get this right.

Peter is suddenly there, crouching down to tug open a drawer near Harley’s feet. There, in pride of place, on a special rack Harley has no doubt Tony built for this specific purpose, is a purple octopus plate. 

A waffle maker is beeping. “How did you know?” he hisses at Peter, unloading a waffle onto the plate. A holographic screen pops up, cartoon fish suddenly swimming, and Tony’s pre-programmed voice fills the kitchen with a cooed, _What’s this? A waffle for Maguuuna?_ and Morgan giggles and Peter looks like someone kicked him in the guts and Harley feels like he swallowed a giant chunk of ice but Peter whispers back, half-choked, “Followed her line of sight,” and Harley manages to serve up the octopus with its waffle and its holograms with mostly-steady hands. 

He was gonna ask if she wanted syrup or something, but a very toothy cartoon shark appears over the waffle and demands Nutella, and Morgan nods along like she expected her breakfast smothered in chocolate ten seconds ago. So he finds the Nutella and smothers her waffle and asks if she wants banana slices to go with it (she does not) or if she’d like him to cut the waffle up for her (she would). 

“These are the best waffles in the world,” Peter announces seriously, sliding a—what, seventh? eighth? waffle onto his own plate, and Morgan looks at him, and chews thoughtfully, and finally gives a single, decisive nod. 

The winners of the Great British Bake-off got _nothing_ on how Harley feels in that moment. 

That’s how Ms. Potts finds them: Harley pouring the last of the second batch of batter into waiting waffle-makers, a clean plate he’s managed to collect three whole waffles on faster than Peter and Morgan could eat them waiting (Peter’s had at least twelve; next time Harley’s gonna keep a tally going or something, because he needs _exact numbers_ , Abby’s not going to believe him either way but he will have the facts or be damned) and Harley’s halfway through a waffle of his own, standing at the counter and stealing bites mid breakfast-production. Like a barbarian. 

Peter and Morgan are seated side-by-side, asking the sea-life holograms increasingly ridiculous questions and laughing at answers, even when they come in Tony’s voice. Morgan’s on her second waffle. They both keep smiling.

The things Harley is feeling shouldn’t all fit into his body at once, he thinks, Ms. Potts’s arm wrapped warm around his shoulder. For a second—just one, but it’s whole and it’s soft and it didn’t need to be more—her head rests against his shoulder. _Thank you,_ she whispers. 

His heart is _broken._ Tony’s gone. His heart is broken, and it’s oriented all its stupid, shattered pieces on Peter Parker anyway, hooked his soul and body and brain and everything that makes Harley _Harley_ along with it. On Peter Parker, who can’t love him back. And Abby grew five years in five minutes and Mom won’t talk to him and Tony is—Tony is gone. But Ms. Potts is smiling and Morgan is eating and Harley is happy. 

He’s _happy_. 

So this moment, this shattered-glass-catching-sunlight moment, he’s just gonna wrap it up in the gentleness he can’t let anyone see and hold it, protect it with the tiny alveoli cushions in his lungs—for as many short breaths as he can. 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Harley's 'I love him and I'll love him for as long as I live' is pretty dramatic, but it's also exactly how I felt at seventeen. I still get shivers from the echoes sometimes. 
> 
> Only echoes, because I have other loves now, but some first loves do last. My grandparents loved each other for 67 years, until my Grandpa died, and my Grandma loves him still. Here's to love, in fiction and in life <3


	12. that's why we won

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so grateful for the kindness and enthusiasm in the comments. It's keeping me motivated even as my life whirlwinds into summer travel chaos. I won't be able to update as quickly as I did for the first ten chapters, but I'll keep this going, and keep updates coming as quickly as I can.

 

* * *

 

After breakfast, Morgan announces Ninja School.

It starts out a lot less exciting than a game called _Ninja School_ sounds. 

“False advertising,” Harley grumbles to Peter, who sits patiently in his row with about eighteen of Morgan’s assorted plushies, dolls, and action figures. Harley has been relegated to the back row, with the _bad kids_. Half of whom are ball-gown-accoutered barbies. “Where’re my throwing stars, huh? If we build an obstacle course and call it a ninja training course, think she’d let us do that instead? My ass is going numb.”

Peter just laughs at him. He looks extremely pleased with the entire situation, beaming up at Morgan every time she comes running in to set up _yet more dolls._ How many can one kid have? _Where are they all coming from?_ This has been going on for hours. Or, like, twenty minutes, but it feels like Harley’s lost another five years of life or something. Abby was never this demanding. Or she was, but Harley didn’t give a shit. He could always escape to his garage, safe in all the good he took for granted. 

“Look at this puppydog,” Peter says, twisting around and pushing a plushie at Harley’s face. “How do they even make something with fake fur and plastic eyes _this cute?_ Ugh, I want one. I want ten. I want an entire bed covered in them—the only thing better would be an actual dog—” The resemblance between Peter’s face and the stuffed puppy toy is positively uncanny. 

“Dog person, huh?”

“How can anyone _not_ be a dog person? I mean, _doggos._ They have eyes, Harley, big happy eyes full of _love_ , and their _tails_ —and—” his eyes are actually shining. Like, brimming with tears of joy. 

Peter fucking Parker.

“Only dogs with eyes and tails. Got it.”

“ _All_ dogs,” Peter insists, offended. “I will love every blind, tailless dog with all my heart, thank you very much. Dogs exist to remind us that, while humans as a species are kind of disappointing sometimes, what with the short-sighted greed and wanton destruction and all— _dogs_ exist, which means goodness, purity, loyalty, and happiness also exist—and life is worth _living,_ Harley.”

“Because dogs.”

Peter spills light all over the room with a full-body smile. “Because dogs.”

“...I like cats.”

“Cats are great too! Dude, the things I’ve seen this one cat do, there’s this street cat I see sometimes, I’m not even sure it’s a cat—maybe an alien, or a very tiny ninja in cat disguise—speaking of ninjas, _she’s coming._ ” 

In the time it takes Harley to blink, the puppy plushie is out of Peter’s cuddling arms and sitting at attention exactly as Morgan had left it, and Peter is also at attention, ramrod-straight, looking eagerly towards the stairs. How he knew she was coming, Harley will never know—but three seconds later she’s pounding towards them, arms full of crayons and sketch books. 

“We’re going to start with a assess-essment,” she announces sternly, scanning her assembled students with sharper eyes than any of Harley’s real teachers ever had. He would never get away with texting in Miss Morgan’s class, that’s for sure. “First, we’ll do meditating. You can do your best when you’re calm.”

What kind of school was Tony sending his kid to?

“Like this?” Peter asks seriously, making circles with his thumbs and index fingers and resting his hands in his knees. 

“Meditation is about _breathing,_ ” Morgan says, rolling her eyes. “You don’t hafta sit anyway special. But you look like a ninja like that, so it’s fine.” 

“Got it, thank you Morgan-sensei!”

Is Peter like this in real school? Harley bets he is. He bets all the teachers love him. He bets a whole lot of his classmates don’t. He was born the wrong species, that’s all. _Goodness, purity, loyalty—_ and honestly no one should look that happy about doing being obedient. 

“Not like that,” Morgan tells him, descending on the bad kids row with extra-stern eyebrows. “You gotta _feel_ your breath.”

_How do you even—?_ Harley swallows snark and a sigh. In front of them, Peter’s shoulders shake with silent giggles. 

During assess(-ess)ment time, Morgan springs rapid-fire math questions at them. 

“What’s seventy-billion-million-eleven with ten gravity?”

“What’s the cute angle in this triangle?”

“Say pi.”

Peter rattles off fifteen digits. Harley, grinning, beats him out of the park with ninety-two. He shouldn’t be proud of it, really, it was an online math-nerd challenge he tried years ago—before he met Tony—but he’s always been a tiny bit impressed with how much he memorized. Secretly. The only person he ever told about his random bout of pi memorization was his mom. 

She was proud. 

Peter follows along with a googled answer on his phone, Morgan’s head pressed against his shoulder so she can watch the screen too, and they both look up at him when he finishes, matching brown eyes genuinely excited. 

“Two thousand correct,” Morgan says solemnly. “You get a sticker.”

Harley wears a purple scratch-n-sniff sticker proudly for the rest of the day. It smells like grape bubblegum. Morgan gets three stickers, because she recites twenty-three digits of pi. Peter doesn’t get any. “It’s okay, Peter, you’ll maybe win another time,” Morgan tells him comfortingly, little hand patting his fluffy head. He actually looks more hopeful at the assurance. 

_Finally,_ Ninja School takes an actual ninja turn.

“Training time,” Morgan says, and it warms Harley up inside to see her actually smiling, even if this particular smile has a decidedly bloodthirsty cast. “Come on, come on! We needs swords.”

Harley was expecting the kind of branded foam toy weapons he lusted after as a child but could never afford, but Morgan surprises him by leading their small parade right outside—into sun shining off the lake and still-damp grass and all the way into the trees, where it turns out that Morgan means the exact kind of play weapon Harley and Abby played with: sticks. 

Peter finds and offers her several within the first few minutes, but she summarily rejects each one. “You gotta find your own sword, Petey,” she explains—pretty patiently, actually. “The bond between a sword and a warrior is _important_. ‘S how you _win_.”

She gets on with her search and Harley begins his own. He’s pretty sure he can bond with any decent-sized stick that isn’t soggy or covered in bugs. Peter has happily adopted one of Morgan’s rejects, and is waving it around making light-saber noises. 

Actual light-saber noises. 

It turns out that Morgan bonds with not only one, but _two_ ideal twigs, both of which have distinct magical properties. Involving rainbows. Really deadly ones. It’s pretty obvious that Peter’s already her favorite—sticker or no sticker—but somehow she and Harley end up ganging up to take Peter and his light-saber-branch down. 

“Goodbye, Jedi,” Morgan intones, stabbing Peter in the shoulder. He stumbles, flails, begins a very, very dramatic death.

“I thought you liked Jedis,” Peter says, once he’s done dying and Harley and Morgan have somehow ended up sprawled on the lawn with him. Harley’s head is on Peter’s stomach, because no way is he dipping his hair in even slightly-dewey grass—he’s having a very good hair day, this is important—and Morgan’s sprawled across both of them, because she’s the _winner._ “Like Luke Skywalker? And Rey!”

“I do,” Morgan says, and Harley bets she’s rolling her eyes. He can’t see her face without lifting his head, which he is not going to do. He can’t believe Peter is just...letting him put his head here. “I like Kylo Ren _more_.”

“‘Cause he’s the best,” Harley agrees. 

“Uh, no,” says Peter, and Harley can feel abs tensing with how emphatically Peter means that. Peter is surprisingly solid—Harley’s noticed it before, in handshakes and shoulder-bumps and...totally-casual human-pillow-ness. “He’s _whiny._ Rey is worth at least forty Kylo Rens—”

“They’re _both_ good,” Morgan insists. “Kylo has better clothes.”

“Yep,” Harley chimes in again. This kid gets it. 

Peter starts laughing, startled at first and then—Harley’s head bouncing with each giggle—harder and harder, gasping something about _of course it’s about the clothes_ in between helpless chortles, and Morgan starts giggling too because Peter’s kind of laughter is the viral kind, and Harley’s laughing because Peter’s laughs are shaking it right out of him. It’s short—a dozen seconds—but it feels somehow huge, like for a moment there’s enough of everything. Enough air and sun and water and green to be good forever. 

Then Peter’s stomach growls. Loudly. Ferally. Like an actual beast might devour Harley whole if he doesn’t scamper a safe distance away. 

“Wow,” says Morgan, impressed. “Mine is never that loud.”

“No mortal’s stomach is that loud,” Harley agrees, sitting up a little regretfully, but then not at all minding the chance to see Peter’s cheeks flush bright red. “We killed him, remember? He’s a zombie now. He wants your brains.”

Something flashes across Morgan’s face, something that makes his own stomach flip, like she might open her mouth and start screaming and never stop—

“Braaaaiiiinnssss,” moans Peter, arms extending straight out in front of him, and then he’s jerking to his feet in truly-impressive zombie-style and Morgan _is_ screaming but it’s playful-kid shrieks as she shoots off across the lawn, Peter stumbling after her. 

_Whew. Safe._

Still...they should be more careful. Death and killing are really, really bad things to joke about, even as part of a silly game, even only because Morgan started it with her bloodthirsty battle yells. He’ll talk to Peter about it. The more he thinks about it, the worse he feels—but Morgan is still running and happy-shrieking, and Peter makes a truly excellent zombie apart from the huge grin stretching clear across his face, and looking at Peter reminds Harley that he was going to go make lunch. 

He finds Ms. Potts already in the kitchen, working her way along a very efficient sandwich-assembly line. Harley admires the set-up appreciatively as he washed his hands, then joins in. These are going to be fantastic sandwiches—toasted artisan bread, three fancy-looking, delicious-smelling spreads to choose from, imported cheese, veggies from Ms. Pott’s own garden, perfection in the form of deli meats—and creamy peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on plain white wonder bread, because Morgan might actually eat that. 

“You two are miracle workers,” Ms. Potts says quietly, squeezing Harley’s shoulder a little as she goes back to the start of the assembly line to craft another sandwich. “I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait to hear her happy, but I didn’t dare hope it’d be so soon.” The smile she gives him warms Harley all the way down to his toes, makes him stand as tall as he can. “Thank you.”

“We’re just a distraction,” he says humbly. And honestly, because if Morgan is anything like Abby (and she is, they’re both bossy and sassy and smart and fierce and scary and beautiful)—“it’ll hit again, I guess. But we can get through that part, too, Ms. Potts, I promise.”

“Pepper.”

“…Pepper,” Harley agrees, only a little shaky. A big part of him feels unworthy to be breathing the same air as this woman. Between what he as part of the general public knows and what Tony told him over the years, he’s got enough healthy respect to border pretty damn close to intimidation. Pepper Potts is badass. And a genius. A superhero in her own right, even if she keeps it on the down-low. 

But he _is_ here, and she’s not telling him to leave, and no way is he giving up this chance. Anything he can do to help, everything he can learn from her—he’s gonna damn well do it. 

Starting with building enough sandwiches to fill Peter’s somehow-bottomless belly. Speaking of…”Uh, Ms.—Pepper? What did you mean, about taking care of Peter? Unless you just meant how much he eats, which—yeah. Makes sense.”

She pauses next to him, looks out the window with him. Morgan is on Peter’s back now, pretending to eat _his_ brains, and getting a wild piggy-back ride in the bargain. He wonders if she’ll take the out he built in there, laugh about how much Peter eats. It’s an easy joke. 

“I would happily feed a hundred Peters,” she says quietly, after a minute. “If it’s food—or—honestly, most problems—I have solutions. Very good ones. What I suspect Peter feels about Tony’s death—“ a half second, a steady breath, and her eyes open again, and all the grief is there but the face stays calm and her hands don’t shake and Harley feels a little thrill of awe—“he blames himself, I think,” she says, takes in Harley’s shock in a glance, turns back to her work. “And I can’t—I can’t bear that. I wish I could, Harley. I wish I could help him with that. Because it’s not true. But I won’t be able to convince him of that. And if he tries to apologize to me, or to Morgan, I’m going to lose it.”

“He can’t be that much of an idiot,” Harley says, even though he kinda already knows he’s wrong. “He wasn’t even there.”

Pepper’s mouth goes tight, and Harley wants to concuss himself. _She_ was there. If the accounts on the news are true, she wasn’t just there—she fought, side-by-side with her husband, in full Iron armor. “No one could have changed anything,” he says, still feeling awful but also completely confident that he’s _right_ about this—“you can’t stop Iron Man. You just can’t. That’s why we won, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” says Pepper, after a moment, and she’s turned away from him, but he hears the tears. “That’s exactly why we won.” 

The air in the kitchen is really heavy as they keep just…doing what they’re doing, making sandwiches, and it’s so mundane and also crazy because he’s in Tony Stark’s kitchen making sandwiches with Pepper Potts and they’re both crying, a little. They get the job done, though, and in the end there’s three serving platters and one purple octopus plate piled high with sandwiches that look so good he kinda wants to whip out his phone and photograph them. 

So he does. 

“Are you snapchatting that? Are you really?”

“Maybe,” Harley hedges, but Pepper looks like she’s almost smiling again, so he grins back. 

“Hmm,” she says. “They _are_ very pretty. Maybe text a pic to Pete while you’re at it—that’ll get him in here quick. And Morgan seems to have velcroed herself to him, so—”

“Okay, I know I shouldn’t ask this, but I’m gonna anyway—uh—are those two related? Like half-siblings? Or—”

“Not by blood,” Pepper says, really smiling now, and Harley’s so glad because if she’d been further upset by the question he’d really feel like an ass. “If we’re talking IQ, anxiety, and guilt-complexes, Peter and Tony are pretty much the same person. And in thankfully healthier ways, Morgan’s a mini-Tony. Can’t say you’re 100% wrong.”

Outside the window, Peter tosses Morgan several inches in the air, catching her easily. Harley checks to see if Pepper is freaked out by this, but she just watches, smile lingering, growing, settling. “This is what Tony wanted,“ she murmurs. “This was his dream.”

Harley has never hated a word like he hates the _was_ in that sentence. But Pepper just steps closer, until her shoulder bumps into his upper arm, light and warm. “If he can see this, you and me and Peter and our baby girl—if he can see us right now, Harley,” she pauses to breathe a bit, blinks away tears before they can fall—“he’s happy,” she whispers. “He’s _so_ happy.”

And then she’s moving away, brisk and poised and lovely, and Harley watches with lifting chin and squaring shoulders. He’s gonna get that strong. He’s going to be just like her. Stand tall when the world crumbles, build it right back up again, and look damn good doing it. 

Goals set, Harley calls two beautiful hooligans in for lunch.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s only pretending to sleep when he hears little tip-toed footsteps down the hall. He goes tense, hardly breathing, not sure if he wants Morgan to come their way or not. 

It’s been a good day. A really good day—maybe it’s because it was so good that anxiety twists so sour through him, making it harder and harder to keep up the lightness and ease and smiles that are actually appropriate to the situation. They had a good lunch, watched two movies together—he and Morgan both fell asleep halfway through Moana—ate delicious drone-delivered Thai for dinner, and then he cleaned the kitchen and talked to May on the phone while Harley and Morgan played a game that involved a chess board and chess pieces but absolutely no chess rules. Ms. Potts slipped away into her office halfway through dinner—maybe because Morgan wouldn’t even look at her—but May assured him that she would be arriving tomorrow, and Peter thinks that if anyone knows what Ms. Potts is going through, knows what to say and what not to say, it’s May. 

May makes everything better. 

Things in general are going better than even the best-case scenarios he imagined. Harley is—Harley is so many things, things that are too hot and bright to touch or look directly at, things that make Peter’s heart rush and stomach swoop, almost like he’s scared—but he’s not. Less and less, anyway, because Harley’s not pushing him away at _all_. Seems like every time Peter looks at Harley, Harley’s looking right back at him. And he’s usually smiling. Or laughing. Or just—looking, but not in a judgy or scary or weird way…well it’s a little weird. Because he looks like he really likes what he sees. 

And then there was that moment where Peter was lying on the grass and he felt Harley’s warmth settling down really close to him but then Harley’s head was on his stomach, just resting there like it was the most normal thing in the world, and suddenly Peter remembered being Spider-man and Harley looking at him with that heartbroken half-smile and saying: _I’m gay._

But that’s—that’s not anything to do with this, right?

Right?

What if it is?

What if—

“Peter?”

Morgan’s at the door, one of her dolls clutched to her chest, none of the usual sassy challenge in her voice or her eyes. She looks so little. He’s crouching in front of her before he’s even registered moving, probably moved too fast to be normal, but Harley doesn’t stir from where he’s sprawled face-down across his bed. He hadn’t even bothered to pull down the comforter before lying down on top of it—was fast asleep before Peter could even suggest it. Must be weird to be able to fall asleep like that. 

“Hey,” he whispers, holding his arms out in case Morgan wants to come closer—holds on to his smile when she doesn’t. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, eyes full of something that looks wrong on her little face. Too big. Too sad. Too hurt. 

“Um…bad dreams? Want some water? Or—” Anxiety pushes up, helplessness sinks, and the _everything’s okay_ laughter-and-play of the day are drowned in between.

“You’re Daddy’s Peter,” she says, voice so small and high and—is he? Should he be? 

“…Is that okay?” he whispers. 

“You died.”

“Um. Kinda. I mean, I did—”

“Daddy got you back.”

“He did,” agrees Peter. Tries to swallow down the sob that comes up with it. 

“Are you going to get him back? I want you to get him back.” 

“Morgan—I—”

“I want you to get him back,” she says, louder this time, and there are tears on her cheeks now and his own face is hot with tears and guilt and shame and—“I want him back, I want him back, GET HIM BACK!” and then she’s screaming, the doll dropped forlorn on the floor, both tiny fists clenched, face turned up, snot and tears dripping down. 

“I know,” Peter whispers, swiping angrily at his own cheeks and nose with his sleeve. He’s not the one who gets to cry here. He’s supposed to—supposed to—“I’m sorry,” he says, chokes on failure clogged thick through his throat, tries again—“I would,” he says. Means it. “I would, if I could, I—I’m not like your dad, Morgan. He was the best hero. He got us back because he was the best and the strongest and I’m not—I don’t know how. I want him back too. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry…” 

“If he was the best he shoulda come back! I want him ba-a-aack!” Morgan howls, and Peter’s shaking because he’s just—he’s making everything worse—behind him Harley is moving, maybe Harley can help, Harley’s smart and Peter is _useless—_ but then suddenly she’s throwing herself at him, leaping for arms he only gets up in times because spidey-reflex takes over. 

He’s so glad she’s letting him hold her and so sick with horror at the same time. He shouldn’t be touching her. He failed, he fucking _failed_ , and she’s—she’s living a nightmare he’s lived three times now, and he doesn’t want _anyone_ to feel like this, ever ever ever, and he should have fixed this, prevented it, if he’d been good enough—fast enough—strong enough—

But he isn’t. He’s just…Peter Parker. Even when he’s Spider-man, he’s not enough. 

“I’m sorry, Morgan,” he whispers. Repeated and broken and as useless as when he whispered the same thing to her father. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her arms are so tight around his neck it’s hard to breathe but he doesn’t want her to move even a centimeter, and he wraps his arms all the way around her and tries to keep his own body strong and still while hers shrieks and rages and trembles. At some point he comes aware of Harley’s hand fierce and warm on his shoulder and Ms. Potts leaning in the doorway with a hand over her mouth and tears lining her cheeks. Morgan’s crying is more just gasping now, small body shuddering on inhales then pausing then shaking on exhales and she’s not screaming anymore, just—whimpering, tiny, humming moans that he feels in his too-tight throat, his sandpaper eyelids, his broken heart. 

Until she’s not crying anymore, and her arms ease, head lolls, hot and damp with sweat and tears. 

“Is she—” he tries, swallows, his voice isn’t working right—

“She’s out,” Harley says, so steady and warm that Peter leans desperately into it, into Harley—catches himself, looks up at Ms. Potts, feeling something like fear. 

“Let’s try putting her in my bed,” Ms. Potts says quietly. “Can you carry her, Peter?”

That’s about all he can do. He’s shaky as he stands, left foot tingling painfully to life after loosing circulation from kneeling so long. Harley catches him. 

Walking into Mr. Stark’s and Ms. Pott’s bedroom feels incredibly awkward—it’s beautiful and lived-in and too personal, a place he was never meant to be—but Harley’s shuffling along half a step behind him so at least—at least they’re intruding together. He eases Morgan onto the bed with far more care than he’s used doing things like picking battle-shrapnel from his own limbs. Feels about as raw, reaching down one last time to adjust her head on the pillow, as he has all the other times he’s felt his body knitting itself back together. 

They exit quickly. Peter walks faster and faster, an awful sick chill flooding him, drowning him, and he doesn’t know where he’s going but he needs to _go._ Into the forest, probably, the trees don’t work as well as skyscrapers but he needs to go far, fast, and—

“Peter. _Peter._ ”

He’s shaking grasping hands off but they’re Harley’s hands, _Harley’s,_ and eyes—those are Harley’s eyes, his blue blue eyes looking at him, wide and worried and—

“Where—where are you going? Are you okay?” 

Peter looks around a little wildly. They’re at the bottom of the stairs—he doesn’t remember coming down the stairs, doesn’t remember anything after letting Morgan go, but big patches of his shirt are wet with her sweat and snot and tears and those patches are sucking cold in, in in in until the chill has gone right through him, and he needs to figure out what to do, what to say, how to make Harley understand that he needs to _go._

“You’re not okay,” Harley says grimly, answering his own question, and he’s pushing close again, reaching. 

Peter backs up. He needs to—he needs to—

“Let me help,” Harley says. Soft, steady, pleading. “C’mon, Pete, you’re not okay, it’s okay to not be okay, I dunno if that makes sense but—come here, okay? Or let me—I got you, Peter, I got you—just let me—”

And he’s reached a wall. There’s nowhere left to go but up it, across the ceiling—or a leap to the side, or a shove to get Harley out of his space. He needs to get away, away from Harley—

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t _want to._

“Okay?” whispers Harley, reaching again, and when Peter doesn’t move or speak or push or breathe, he takes him. 

Pulls him away from the wall, hands warm and gentle and sure, wraps strong arms all the way around him, holds tight. 

“This…this okay?” 

He can’t breathe, but he can nod. 

“Okay” says Harley. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see, Peter. We’re gonna be okay. But right now we’re not. And that’s okay. I sound stupid. But I’m _right_.”

Something in his chest cracks painfully, lets Harley’s warmth reach in. Peter _believes_ him. Oxygen shudders in. A sob shudders out. Now he’s weeping, mostly silent but Harley’s _holding_ him and Peter’s got fistfuls of the back of Harley’s t-shirt and he can feel Harley’s diaphragm moving and his heart pounding and there’s no way Harley doesn’t feel how lost Peter is, how out-of-control and helpless he is, but he just keeps saying _you’re okay. You’re good, Peter, I’ve got you, I’ve got you._

When Harley pulls him towards the stairs, he goes. 

When Harley collapses onto his bed, Peter falls too. 

When Harley says he’s exhausted, says, “Let’s just sleep, yeah?” Peter shifts closer, holds on tighter, knows he should get up, drink some water, wash his face, apologize a thousand times, get in his own bed—but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do any of those things. 

He sighs and lets his eyes close again and holds on to Harley. 

“I’ve got you,” Harley says, and kisses the place on Peter’s forehead that’s been pressed against his chin—or he doesn’t, and Peter’s already dreaming. 

Sleep pulls deep. Harley is here, and Peter is safe.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh one more note--the pi reciting contest is straight out of my super-nerdy childhood. One of my brothers can still stay it up to 200 digits. My youngest sister added the first 23 digits to her name on every 1st grade worksheet. I have a sucky memory for that kind of thing and was never able to remember more than 9 digits, which is more than even the most advanced math ever needs, so =P


	13. we're good

* * *

Waking up in Peter’s arms sets Harley spinning on a private internal hurricane he’s not sure he’ll make it out of alive. First there’s half-consciousness, that sort of gradient awareness of his own body and then Peter’s body and then he wakes up _really_ fast, because _Peter Peter Peter THAT’S PETER_ : the slightly-itchy softness against his cheek is Peter’s hair, the lungs breathing against his own are Peter’s lungs, the arms clamped around Harley—one half-under Harley’s neck, half-under the pillow, the other stretched all the way across Harley’s chest, fingers curled in Harley’s sleeve—those are Peter’s arms. Peter’s really, really strong arms. What he can see of Peter’s face is soft and slack with sleep, and he’s certainly not straining or flexing, but those arms are about as yielding as the branches of the giant oak by the creek back home of about the same girth and that Harley easily trusts his entire weight to—and Abby’s, too.

Their legs are over and against each other and Harley's heart is pounding under Peter’s perfect face and he might think he was dreaming except—except he’s getting more and more aware of things that definitely aren’t dreamy, like the ache of his shoulder under Peter’s head and how he’s kinda sweaty from the heat of another body pressed against his or how his mouth has that gross sour morning taste and he kinda really has to pee. Also he basically dragged Peter into bed with him last night—in a totally innocent way, and Peter didn’t seem to want to let go, but—what is he going to do when Peter wakes up? What is he going to say?

Is he doomed to say it with disgusting morning breath?

He tilts his face away from Peter’s, not wanting to breathe on him or—or watch him wake up and be horrified when he realizes where he is—but then he turns it right back, because chances are depressingly high that this is the first and last time he’ll get to see Peter like this, _hold_ Peter like this, and no way in hell is he not holding on for as long as he can. 

Unless letting go would increase the chances that he might get to be trapped in these arms again. Is that…is that a real factor? Or him freaking out? Help?

“Yr heart’s beatin’ really fast,” Peter slurs, and Harley freezes. Feels like actual ice is slipping through his veins, but Peter’s eyes are still closed, he’s still wrapped around Harley, if anything he’s holding on tighter—“y’okay?”

“Yeah,” breathes Harley. “Yeah, I’m…good. I’m real good.” No. No, he should not have said those words, that sounded—

“Mmm,” Peter hums, and shifts a bit, wiggling _closer,_ burying his face in Harley’s neck. 

Then he drifts right back to sleep. 

Disbelieving, Harley lets one hand settle back on Peter’s back. Lets his other hand come up, wary and tentative as if he’s reaching for live wires—combs silky curls back, feather-light. Peter’s breath is warm and steady against his skin, and slowly, slowly—Harley’s eases to match it. 

He still needs to pee and there’s still going to be some kind of fall out; he can’t imagine how things aren’t going to be awkward at best, end in painful rejection at worst—but this is what he’s got, right now, and it’s pretty fucking perfect.

 

* * *

 

Peter hasn’t felt warm in a long, long time. He feels himself waking up, fights it—he’s been so tired, for so long, and the cold—the cold has been there since the spider bite, since the fever and the chills that shook him so hard he felt everything solid in him shatter, and shatter again, smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. A fractal disintegration. 

Peter likes fractals. 

He does not like being cold. He’s _always_ cold. Which is why he absolutely can’t wake up. Maybe it’s like the thing that happens to hypothermia victims, where eventually their core body temperatures sink to a point where they stop feeling the difference between themselves and the climate killing them, and they relax and feel warm…and then they die. He doesn’t want to die. Most of the time, anyway. But he also doesn’t want to wake up, and maybe that amounts to the same thing, because he feels—soft, safe, warm— _warm._ There’s a heartbeat louder than his own thrumming through him, and that’s…weird, but a good weird, a not-alone weird, a warm warm _warm_ weird and figuring out why it’s there means waking up all the way and then it will all be gone. 

Cold again. Alone again. And he doesn’t know what he dreamed, if he dreamed, but there were no nightmares. For once, waking up sounds worse than staying asleep. 

Maybe he's slipped into a pleasant parallel universe, because it actually works. For a little while, anyway. He settles deeper, still warm, and then deeper still and suddenly he's waking up—properly, unfortunately, but there's energy riding his blood that's almost unfamiliar because it’s been so long since he’s been _rested,_ rather than zapped up on fear, anxiety, and desperation. He’s warm and—and whole. He can’t think of a better word, really. Like the bits of self he’s been straining to hold together are staying in place, for once, and he doesn’t have to try so hard. 

Or maybe it’s the pulse point inches from his lips and the arm around his back and the hand in his hair holding him together. Because that’s…that’s real, it turns out, he was sure he’d dreamed it, but— _Open your eyes, Peter. Come on. Do it. Don’t be a coward._

He opens his eyes. Pushes his head back, centimeter by centimeter— _Harley._ He’s holding onto Harley, _half on top of Harley,_ and those sure are Harley’s breathtaking blue eyes staring back at him. 

Literally breathtaking. Peter can’t breathe. Or move. Or—or speak—oh no, oh _no…_

“Hey, Pete,” says Harley, but it comes out all small, maybe—maybe _scared—_

_What have I done? No, NO, what have I done?_

“Harley,” gasps Peter, and he has to make his limbs work,come _on,_ fingers, _move—_ now arms—sit up—“I’m sorry, I’m—”

"Hey, no, don't," Harley says, pushing himself up so he's sitting too, reaching for Peter. "Please don't be sorry, Peter. Please? I—“

Nothing comes after, and Harley looks—cracked open, a little hopeful, a little pleading, a lot afraid. Like he thinks Peter might be mad at _him_. But he...doesn't look mad at all. Or disgusted. Not even, like, annoyed. 

Peter almost falls backwards off the bed, relief rushes him so hard. "Thanks," he whispers. Feels the smile coming, tries to pull it in. "That was, um, that's the best sleep I've had in a while. Like a long while. Sorry for going all...leech-y octopus on you. Or—not sorry, I guess—“ the smile breaks through anyway. 

Harley stares at him so openly, looking so dazed, that the panic Peter’d mostly shaken off scuttles right back. He can see Harley's pupils dilating. "Um—are you—are you okay? I should, uh, I should get off your bed—let you have your space, finally, hah—“ everything about him in this moment is so awkward that it's physically painful. Not a new experience, unfortunately. But he does manage to get his feet untangled from the blankets (and Harley's legs), sink his feet into the carpet, spare a thought of gratitude for supernatural equilibrium keeping him upright when naturally he'd have tripped and sprawled across the floor by now—is Harley going red? Is he...blushing?

"I'm good," Harley says quickly, with this tiny shudder like he's shaking himself awake. "And, uh, us? We good?" 

"Yeah," Peter says, almost sick to his stomach with how grateful he is. Harley is—impossibly cool, being all chill with Peter sobbing all over him last night and then following him into bed and clinging to him for—aghhh, _hours—_ Peter doesn't know _why_ , doesn't get how Harley can be so accepting, especially after Peter's already scared him off once. But if he's offering, Peter's taking him up on it. "We're good." 

Harley's shoulders slump. Peter hadn't noticed until he's staring at the contrast, but Harley's posture had been crazy defensive for a dude sitting on a bed Peter'd totally invaded, insisting there was no need for apologies. "Awesome. Uh, bathroom. Going to the bathroom. Didn't need to tell you that. I'll make breakfast after."

"Can I help?"

"Dunno, can you be involved and not mess it up?"

"I'll follow your every order."

"Then it'll be perfect. Kitchen in five." 

Harley leaves rather quickly. Peter stays in the middle of the room, doing his best to breath steadily, bracing for the panic he hasn't quite shaken since realizing the alien spacecraft he was clinging to was leaving the fucking planet. He tries to tighten up whatever intangible thing it is that holds him together inside, tug the broken edges against one another tightly enough to not show on the outside, but there's nothing to tighten. Everything (what's left of him, grief-hollows included) is in place. He feels loose, skin cooling with every second away from Harley but warm underneath, like he's got a bit of hope-heat stored in his bones. It's strange, almost like slipping into someone else's body for a bit, or time-traveling back to his own, before...before a lot of things. 

_Warm-weird and strange-good,_ he thinks, smiling a little. He hears Harley vigorously brushing his teeth in the bathroom; Ms. Pott's and Morgan's sleep-steady breathing behind the cracked open bedroom door at the end of the hall. If he really concentrates, he can hear all three of their heartbeats. And his own. And the hum of the small arc reactor powering this off-grid home. 

_We're good_ , he told Harley. 

_We're going to be okay,_ Ms. Potts promised Tony. 

He’s almost starting to believe it.

* * *

 


	14. lucky/unlucky

* * *

 Peter is tracking Harley’s heartbeat. Has been since he woke up pressed against it, but it’s so—subconscious, primal, intimate—that it takes him most the day to realize what he’s doing, and when he does, he chokes on nothing and goes promptly, violently red.

“Baby, you okay?” Aunt May is right there, reaching out to rub his back but stopping before making contact, looking to him for permission in case this is a sensory thing and her touch would burn—but no, no, he’s just a complete and total idiot who is confused in ways he didn’t know he could be confused. “Peter, do you—what do you need—”

And now everyone’s looking at him. Everyone. May and Happy, who drove her up to the lake house even though she’d intended to drive herself; Ms. Potts, looking him over with eyes a little too-well practiced in spotting self-consciously-hidden injuries; Harley and Morgan. Even the painted eyes of the Hungry Hungry Hippos game Harley and Morgan were playing are staring at him.

They’re on the porch. Drinking sun tea and doing a comfortable amount of nothing; everything was calm and good, if a little hot and muggy, which is probably why Harley suggested an afternoon swim, and he’d looked at Peter while his heart rate increased and Peter thought _huh, is Harley afraid of swimming? But he suggested it—_ and then he realized _that rhythm I’ve been breathing to is Harley’s heart_ and—yeah.

Yeah.

Fuck.

“I’m good,” he says. Squeaks. _Squeaks._ His face is so hot it hurts. “Just—uh—wa—water—” and he bolts. Runs right past Ms. Potts holding a literal jug of ice water, into the house and up the stairs and into his room. Which doesn’t really help, because it’s also Harley’s room, and now he’s staring at Harley’s bed. The bed he woke up in. The bed Harley held him in, all night, where Peter got the best sleep he’s had in—so long, he doesn’t even know how long—listening to Harley Keener’s heart.

Okay. This is okay. He is okay. No reason to panic, even if the biggest thing he’s feeling apart from panic is the urge to rush back downstairs, get to where he can hear Harley again, see him, touch him— _right then, panic it is!_

Is this like—a Stockholm syndrome thing? Minus captivity? He’s dealing with trauma, Harley helped him during trauma, he and Harley have at least a small part of shared trauma—yes, that could be it. It’s just brain chemistry reacting to stress in weird ways. Happens to everyone. And he happens to have spider-weirdness that makes it possible to do something like fixate on a particular heartbeat. Everyone would end up doing that if it they had spider-senses. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Totally normal.

He just has to...not do it. _Be cool, Peter._ Harley’s cool. Be cool like Harley. Not...obsessed. With Harley.

_I, Peter Parker, am a heartbeat-eavesdropping creep._

Shit.

Footsteps on the stairs nearly have him leaping out the window, but then he knows that it’s May, and she’ll just trek out into the woods after him. Best not to make her do that again.

Gentle knocking on the door. His name in that careful, I-know-you’re-hurting-and-I-need-to-make-it-better voice. He does not want this. He opens the door.

“I’m fine—”

“Budge up. I’m coming in.”

“I know I’m being weird—”

“It’s okay to be weird, sweetheart. I just don’t want you to be alone if there’s any possibility of a panic attack. Harley offered to come, if you’d rather it be him—”

His helpless, spluttering non-answer to that suggestion gives away too much.

“Oh, baby,” May says, sitting him down on the bed and pulling his head against her middle, fingers on his shoulder, in his hair. Like always. He’s practically programmed to calm in this position, for his muscles to loosen and breathing to lighten, and his throat clogs up a bit with comfort he is terrified, now, of ever, ever taking for granted. (He’s lucky. And unlucky. There’s always been someone there for him, to hold him and love him...for a little while, until they disappear. People he loves, they die, they die—.)

“Is it because of a new crush? I know those can be so overwhelming. The setting, maybe? I can get us back to the city, baby. You could be Spider-man, channel some of that energy. Just say the word—“

“No,” he gasps, and the thought of leaving everything from these last two days behind keeps shoving words out before he’s ready. “No, no, I swear I’m fine, I’m sorry, I—what? What crush? I didn’t say anything about a crush.”

“You didn’t need to,” May says tenderly. Kisses the top of his head. “I don’t know if this will help or make it worse, but I’m pretty confident he likes you back.”

“Wha—” Nothing. He’s got nothing. “Wh...” Continuing confusion. More panic.

“Peter,” May says slowly, moving to sit beside him, gentle fingers tilting his face to hers. “If I’m assuming too much here, show it and I’ll stop, okay? But Harley seems like a good kid. Happy trusts him. He’s very handsome. More importantly, he’s smart, well-mannered, and I’ve only ever seen him treat people well. He's _adorable_ with Morgan. And he looks at you like you’re better ice cream. Pretty promising crush, if you ask me.”

He didn’t. He didn’t ask her. He didn’t even ask himself.

“Okay, I’m making you more panicked, not less,” May says, chagrined. Brushes his bangs back with hesitant fingers. “Would you like someone else to come up? I’m sorry, baby, I know you want to be alone but I just—I can’t let you, not now—”

He’s making her feel bad. It’s making him feel even worse. What crawls out of his mouth, though, is the worst. “He—you think he—likes me?”

“Yeah, baby,” May says, her entire posture curving. Down with relief, up into smiles. “I’d say that’s a whopper of an understatement, actually. You think you might like him back?”

“I don’t know,” Peter whispers, and it helps a little, to tell the truth. ”I always—I always liked girls. I mean, I never felt totally comfortable with the whole boy/girl dichotomy, like people are—there are so many pretty people—but—it feels like I was just...MJ...”

May pulls her hair away from her shoulder; an invitation, and he takes it gladly, resting his head. It’s not exactly comfortable—he’s too tall, now, and May’s shoulders have always been bony—but it is comforting. Nothing bad can happen to May. Never, _never_. He won’t survive it.

“Nothing makes sense right now, darling,” she says, soft as her voice can go. “Half of the world disappeared. Five years happened. Half of the world came back. And life—just being human, that’s always confusing. Anything you’re feeling, Peter, confusion, fear, grief, hope, a crush—it’s okay. It’s not easy, not even a little bit, but it’s okay. It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to not understand what you feel. You have to let yourself feel it, though. That’s the only way.”

“I don’t want to,” he mumbles, miserable. “Or—I don’t know. I don’t know, May, I...”

He stops because if he lets anything else out of his mouth, a sob is going to come out with it. He’s so sick of crying.

“You don’t need to know. Well, there are some things you need to know. You need to know you’re perfect exactly as you are. You need to know you’re loved exactly as you are. You need to know that it’s okay to love whomever you love. I’m certainly not going to love you any less. Not for anything, not for the entire universe, not because of anything you could ever do. So you just feel whatever it is you feel, and the rest will unfold one way or another, okay?”

So lucky. So unlucky. “Okay, May,” he whispers. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“We’re the best,” she insists, arms all the way around him, jostling and squeezing tight. Shakes loose some of the pain-pockets, the anxiety-knots he keeps snagging on, choking on, and with her there to hold him, he manages to let a few jostle right out of him. Like when Harley held him. That’s terrifying, but his lungs feel fuller on his next breath in. There’s a little more room for oxygen. A little more room for hope.

“It’s really okay if I like him?” He asks, voice small, and he maybe should be braver than this, not need validation so desperately, but—

“A million times yes,” May says instantly. “If it’s okay with your big heart and your big brain, if it works with what you want for yourself and who you want to be—that’s all the okay you need, ever. And you know, baby, you can just try. You can try and then change your mind. That’s allowed too.”

“That would be mean.”

“It might hurt,” May allows, “but it’s not mean unless one of you makes it that way. If you’re open, and honest, with yourself and with Harley—with anyone you’re putting bits of life together with—it’s the best and kindest way to do it. The reality is that most relationships end up being trial runs, sweetheart. That's just how it goes.”

“I don't—I'm not okay with that,” Peter says, because that just doesn’t feel right. “I don’t even know what I feel exactly but—it’s not a trial run, May. That’s not...that’s not cool. I can’t lose him, I—”

“Hey,” she hushes. “Hey, hey Peter, no rush, absolutely no rush, okay? Nothing has to be decided or figured out right away. Take it slow. One moment at a time, breathe, get to know him, see how you feel around him. Trust yourself. You’re trustworthy, my Peter.”

It’s glowing and warm. The highest praise she can give, because trust is foundational for her, and he doesn’t deserve it. 

“Stop it. Whatever you’re telling yourself right now, don’t listen to it. Listen to me.”

“I thought you said to trust myself,” he protests, laughing and choking on it, mashing tears into his cheekbones with ungentle palms.

“Yeah, and I was talking about _you_. Not your anxiety. Not all the shitty stuff that never should have happened you. If you only knew how many people I want to kick in the face for hurting my boy—”

She’s fierce as any dragon, and he’s laughing harder now, if not any less wetly.

_Lucky._

“Sooo,” May drawls, and he winces, feeling the tease coming. “Swimming, huh? I bet Harley looks good without a shirt. And you certainly have nothing to be shy about—”

_“May!”_

 

* * *

 

They go swimming. They go because it’s hot and the house is air-conditioned but Peter is going to slip up and pace up a wall if he has to spend any more time inside. They go because Morgan’s excited about it and Harley’s trying to distract her, skips anxious side-glances Peter’s way every time she brings it up as he tries to change the subject on a kid way too smart and stubborn to be derailed that way, and Peter can’t undo his ridiculous awkward disappearing act, but he can try to be...less awkward. Probably not all that successfully, because awkward is practically the Peter Parker brand, but it would be beyond cowardly not to try.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. maps the way to the most ideal of nearby swimming holes, and “the kids” take Harley’s car. May and Happy follow in their own car, leaving Pepper to actual peace and quiet in her own home. Peter hopes it’s what she wants.

The air is muggy and the water is still, and there are so many insects he has to work hard on not tracking every skitter and buzz. He focuses on Morgan. And on Harley. He tries to do less of the latter and more of the former.

This would be a lot easier if May wasn’t quite so right about everything, including how Harley looks without a shirt (good. He looks so good. Is it o _bjective-good_ or _turns-out-I’m-bi good_? Who knows? Not Peter.)

He knows the heat feels good and Morgan’s shrieking glee feels even better, even as it hurts his ears—he knows the green all around, foreign and heavy-scented to him, is what makes Harley’s face so soft with ease and peace, and it’s even harder not to look. There’s this tiny bit of almost-beach with sand and clay and just a few inches of water, and that’s where Morgan goes full-hooligan, kicking-stomping-splashing-chanting. She flings sticks and rocks and hunks of pond-clay, sometimes almost-angry but the next second sweet and giggly and he thinks—he thinks this might be exactly what she needed. Space for trapped-in-things to metamorphose into flying screaming out-things, and then hopefully, hopefully never come back. At least not as strong. Not as sharp.

Harley cannonballs in and splashes out, over and over, making just as much ruckus as Morgan. Happy and May move their folding chairs back three times before they’re fully out of the splash zone.

And Peter plasters himself to the back of Morgan’s giant inflatable turtle, bobbing serenely and soaking up sun like every pore needs its own sip. Smothers his face in hot plastic to hide his laughter when Harley tries to knock him off—and tries again—and again—and stutters over swears he doesn’t want to say in front of Morgan because Peter is stuck to that turtle.

Spidey-powers for the win!

Until Harley flips the whole turtle over.

Peter comes up gasping and shaking with sudden shocking cold. Sees sun in thousands of drops of spraying water and Harley’s head thrown back, eyes squinted shut, mouth wide with triumph and laughter—Morgan’s happy battle-cry from the shallows—Aunt May’s _oh my_ and Happy’s soft snore—lunges for the kill.

Harley’s barely dunked before Peter’s letting him up, _I don’t want to hurt anyone_ always-anxiety keeping his touches light but their skin slides together and Harley is warm in cold water. Something bright and fierce swoops hot through Peter. It feels like he felt the first time he leapt off a rooftop, nothing but sticky string to catch him. He wants to hold Harley. Wants.—W _ants_.

He lets go. Shoves Harley away, hard enough to send his head back under the water. Kicks out for the shore.

Harley catches his ankle. Pulls hand-over-hand up Peter’s leg, until strong long fingers wrap around Peter’s hip and push to leverage the other arm up and around Peter’s neck—

“Gotcha,” Harley whispers, grinning something fierce and burning-beautiful, and Peter can’t hear anything but Harley’s heartbeat, bursting like a sprinter on _3-2-1 go_.

He’s chilled-through with pond-cold but untouched heat beats hungry in his chest and one arm has gone around Harley’s waist, legs keep kicking and sliding and tangling, treading water.

“Race you to Morgan,” breathes Peter, the moment he gets enough oxygen in to push words out—watches the challenge catch fire in Harley’s eyes. It works: Harley lets go first. Sets his feet against Peter's middle and launches right off his abs, stretching out long to swim hard, yelling his answer.

Harley wins. Peter takes the reaching hand, gets pulled up onto sandy ground, where Morgan takes immediate advantage of having both of them within easy aiming distance.

It turns into a general sand-and-debris-flinging extravaganza, until May puts an end to it before “someone takes a stick to the eye; also the delivery drone’s here, it’s time to eat”.

Peter can’t feel his fingers or his toes, chilled all the way through from his dip in the water—he tries to hide it, wraps himself firmly in the towel May hands him. Wonders how the dizzy, fizzing heat in his chest keeps sparking anyway, bubbling brighter each time Harley looks at him. Delivery containers are opened and he sits on a spare towel eating delicious fried dumplings with numb fingers, and that warms him up a tiny bit—but eventually he has to stop, because he’s shivering too hard to hold his chopsticks. Harley has definitely noticed.

Morgan’s half-asleep, swaddled in towels and tucked against Happy. May says, “You need a hot shower ten minutes ago, Peter. Do you want me to drive you back now?”

“I’ll take him,” Harley says quickly, then—“uh, or whatever, Pete, your lips are kinda blue though so choose fast, yeah?”

_Choose fast._

“Nah, May, you stay, I know you wanna finish your chapter,” Peter says, trying to sound casual around chattering teeth. “You ready, Ha-Harley?”

Harley isn't ready, but he sure is rushing to be. It’s funny, and endearing, and Peter stands there useless while Harley splashes back into the pond to drag out the floating turtle, then towels dry again like he’s trying to set the world record for speed-toweling and pulls a shirt over his head that sticks to his skin because it’s still mostly wet and his hair is a mess, all damp and and sticking up everywhere, and Peter’s not going to look at May because he knows she’s doing something terrible, like winking at him.

“Keys, keys—got ‘em. Alright, Petey, we're golden.”

They drop goodbye-pats on Morgan’s sleepy head and shuffle off down the path to the side of the road where the cars are parked. Ten steps in, Harley winds a hesitant arm around Peter’s shoulders.

“This okay?” he asks. “Hell, Pete, you feel as cold as you look.”

“N-not so awesome at thermo...thermoregulating,” Peter manages, and presses closer, because even if he wasn’t freezing he’d want to—he’s pretty sure he’d want to.

Their steps seem to be getting smaller, slower, and Peter keeps pressing closer, and finally Harley stops. Turns, slow and cautious, giving Peter loads of time to make more distance between them, not less. Loops a second arm around Peter's shoulders. 

Peter leans in. 

"Peter," whispers Harley. Like he's in pain. Starting a prayer. Both. 

_Lucky. Unlucky._

_Harley.  
_

He's not thinking. He shouldn't do this when he's not thinking, he needs to—needs to...  
  
Against his chest, Harley's heart beats. Fills Peter. Fills everything. Stretching up is easy; he's too buoyant for gravity, he wants—he  _hopes—_ lifts his chin, terrified and smiling.  
  
Harley's mouth covers his. 

* * *

  
_Lucky._

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys this is me begging for comments. Please drop me a few words before you go? I'm in a place where I desperately need the encouragement, or to feel less lonely because at least I'm not the only one who cares an awful lot about these beautiful fictional disaster kids


	15. electricity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was blown away by the flood of comments last chapter. Thank you, each of you, so incredibly much. I’m not sure there are words for how grateful I am, for how much every single email notification lifted me up. Thank you. 
> 
> This chapter is nothing but kisses. Like literally. If you want plot, maybe wait a bit for the next update. If you’re here for the kisses, I hope you enjoy them as much as our disaster kids do 💙

 

* * *

 

The first kiss happens like lightning happens. Positive and negative charges mix with updrafts and outside updrafts and electricity sparks and illuminates and Harley’s mouth meets Peter’s. The truth about lightning is: hundreds of years of experimentation and observation have identified layers of atmospheric charge and patterns of airflow and temperature, but no explanation. No  _why_. Anyone who says they understand lightning is maybe ignorant, maybe lying. 

Harley didn’t mean to kiss Peter. He’s smarter than that. Learned the hard way too many times for that. Wants Peter too much for that. 

But he’s kissing Peter, cold lips opening to his, firm muscle and shivering skin pressing fire hip-to-chest, arms he knows he can’t escape closing circle around his shoulders and fingers curling in his hair. Like thunder from lightning, second-third-fourth kisses come. 

“Peter,” he gasps into the next kiss, because it’s the only thing he  can say, brain whited bright in fear and joy. He has to—has to make sure—“ _Peter_ — ”

“This okay?” whispers Peter. Those are the words Harley needed. The words he was going to say.

“Yes,” he says, arms all the way around Peter and gathering possessively closer, because no way one word can mean enough.  “ _Yes_ —”

Peter kisses him again. Kisses with the intent and momentum that has stolen Harley's breath every time he's seen it on Peter's face, cut-jawed and clear-eyed,  one-man-army -Peter. In a kiss, mouth-to-molten-energy, Harley has to hold on just to keep standing. 

Peter breaks away. “Wow,” he says, half-panting, half-laughing. Bits of sunset-gold catch in his hair, his upturned face. Harley can’t look at him and breathe, and gives up on oxygen. “Now—now I know why people like kissing.”

There's been a panic coiled feral around the base of Harley’s spine ever since Peter leaned into the tentative arm Harley'd slung around his shoulders, and now it twists violently high. Any moment now, Peter’s laugh will turn mocking. He'll shove Harley away, curiosity satisfied. Show all the ways he didn’t mean what just happened. Harley's mouth tilts, uncertain, wet with Peter's kisses. “That your first time kissing a boy?”

“First time kissing anyone.” There’s that smile, brilliant and blinding, until it catches on things Harley can't hide. “You—you okay? I—uh—did you not want—” and just like that, all that intense confidence cringes in, and Peter steps back. “Sorry, I—I tend to just, um, go for things—too fast—Harley—”

“I wanted it,” Harley says, low and shaken. “I want you, Peter Parker.”

“I like you too,” Peter says, and it helps, but there’s no way Peter misheard the words Harley didn’t intend to say. 

“Yeah, um,” Harley says, hovering somewhere between giddy joy and defensive despair. “I like you. Like a lot. Like I can’t believe you let me—kiss you—”

“Want to—” Peter’s looking at his lips. 

“Yes,” breathes Harley. Maybe he’s dreaming. That would explain a lot. Maybe he fell asleep on Morgan’s giant turtle, and he’s going to wake up by flailing right into the pond. “Yeah, absolutely, but maybe in the car? With the heater on.”

Peter glances down at his limbs, all shaking incontrollably now. His lips and fingernails are tinted purple and blue. Harley presses lips to Peter’s forehead, cheekbone, the frigid tip of his nose, trying to kiss the embarrassment pinching up Peter’s face away. 

“How are you so...” maybe Peter finishes his sentence, but it’s lost against Harley’s shoulder. 

“C’mon, iceboy.” All of their fingers are trembling, but they fit together just fine. They walk faster this time, if a little drunkenly. Harley’s dizzy and disbelieving and happier than he can remember being in—years—and scared, because it’s dangerous to be that happy. Peter’s...just really cold, probably. Or maybe it’s that he keeps looking at Harley, instead of where he’s going. 

Maybe it’s the kisses they stop to steal along the way. 

They make it to the car. Harley cranks the heat up. Peter’s mouth finds his. 

Until Peter pulls back, blushing and lips pink— finally— says, breathless and kind of helplessly, laughingly chagrined: “They’re coming—Happy and May and Morgan—I can hear them—”

Harley can’t hear anything, but the thought of getting caught making out with Peter by Peter’s Aunt is enough to jolt him from the better-than-dreams alternate reality he’s either hallucinating or inhabiting and back to the fact that his hip is aching something fierce from pressing so hard into the center console as he leans halfway over Peter’s seat, and that his hands are supposed to be on the steering wheel, not in Peter’s hair. 

“Okay,” he—kind of says. He’s having a hard time making his mouth make words, make anything but kisses for Peter. “Yeah, uh, I’ll, um. I’ll drive.”

He doesn’t look at Peter while he drives. It’s hard enough to focus already, and that feral fear is creeping up again. But two minutes in Peter’s hand finds his, where it’s dropped from habit to his knee—their fingers fit together, already familiar, and hope rises all the way back to the Tony’s place.

It’s going to get awkward, one way or another, but maybe—just maybe—it’s going to work. 

Harley’s pretty good at making things work. If Peter’s half as good at whatever else goes into—whatever this is—as he is at making Harley forget his own name three seconds into a kiss, the very best of everything Harley’s lived is just about to begin. 

 


	16. save it for when you really need it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for not giving up on this story. I don't know how quickly updates will come, but they'll come.

Time feels extra-relative at the lake house. _Not that time seems to obey any rules at all anymore_ , May thinks, turning to watch Morgan come shrieking across the grass, half-dressed and shouting a passionate stream of _No!_

Pepper comes huffing out behind her, carrying a small purple shirt and looking a lot worse than she has in a good two days now. She opens her mouth to shout after Morgan, catches sight of May sitting on the porch, and her jaw snaps shut. “I’m not the kind of mother who shouts,” she says, and May thinks she’s probably trying to remind herself of that just as much as she’s trying to not look awful in front of May.

“I am,” May says easily. “Not on purpose, of course. If your kid doesn’t have you questioning every positive belief you’ve ever held about yourself, are you really a parent?”

Pepper stares at her for a bit. Looks back towards the trees Morgan is rapidly disappearing behind. Looks back at May.

Plops down on the porch swing next to her. 

“Is is this bad for everyone?” she asks, just frayed enough to sound a tiny bit desperate. “Is that even possible? Would the human race even exist? ...I somehow managed being Tony’s PA, and taking charge of SI, and then I married him, and I survived all of that and more and thought: okay, I’m capable. Then we had Morgan and I learned: I don’t actually know how to do anything. _Anything._ ” She brandishes the bedazzled purple material in her hands. “It’s a _shirt._ I can’t—I can’t do _shirt._ ” The almost-smile she give is heartbreaking, a little hysterical, and very, very familiar.

“Congratulations, you have a kid,” May grins at her. “Got any wine? I feel like we should drink to that. To us.”

“God, that sounds good,” Pepper admits. “But it’s ten in the morning. And I should go—” her face turns towards the place her daughter was last seen, but she doesn’t seem to have energy to get the rest of herself moving in that direction. Tears pool suddenly, spill down her cheeks. “Why,” she whispers. “I don’t even know why I’m crying—”

May sits up straighter, chest tight with sympathy. She knows what this is like. She _knows._ “Hang on,” she says, and it comes out a bit too bold, a bit too much like an order. But Pepper Potts, arguably one of the most powerful people in the world, looks _relieved_. “I got this,” May pushes on, embracing her confidence, and she does _got this_. “I’ll get the boys on Morgan-duty, we’ll have mimosas because it’s brunch time, and then we’re going to go throw rocks in the lake.”

“Oh, the boys—they’ve spent so much time looking after her already, they’ve been wonderful—”

May ignores her. “Peter!” she calls. Not very loudly. He’ll hear her. “Peter Benjamin, stop making out with Harley and hurry over here. You’ve got a mission.”

A startled crashing noise comes from the direction of the garage. May smirks. Next to her, Pepper bites her lip against a growing grin. “They probably think they’re being subtle,” she says. “You know, for all those times Tony imagined them together, I think it was more along the lines of them teaming up—in the lab or on the field, he used the term ‘dream team, like me and Cap, except functional’ at least twice—”

“He didn’t imagine them being quite this together, huh?” May laughs. 

“It’s good, though. They’ve been so happy, May—they’re good boys, Harley is—”

“I know, I agree,” May assures. “It makes me happy, too. Still won’t kill them to keep their tongues out of each others’ mouths for a whole thirty minutes.” 

Pepper has a hand hiding her giggles as Peter jogs up, face red enough to rival any stoplight. Harley trails along after him, apparently thinking he’s pulling off a nonchalant look.

“You, uh, you said something about a mission?” Peter says, wincing as his breathless voice breaks a bit, and wow, his lips look pretty swollen. She’d better make sure he’s got lube and condoms to go along with the all the wise cautions about giving himself time and not taking things too fast that she’s going to impart. 

May gestures to the shirt Pepper’s limply holding. “Get that,” she says, swallowing down a chuckle as Harley ambles into clear view, shirt untucked, hair sticking in all directions, “onto that.” She tilts her chin towards where Morgan’s angry shrieking has turned into an impassioned rendition of _Let it Go._ “Then take her swimming. Or through the obstacle course you’ve been building, or play ninja school—whatever it takes for her to conk out for a good nap after lunch, ‘kay?”

“Got it,” Peter says easily, cheeks still pink but good humor very much intact. He probably has his own ulterior motives for wanting Morgan worn out enough to nap. Maybe May should make a rule about the boys keeping their bedroom door open. 

Nah. They’ll just go somewhere else. Somewhere less sanitary, or where they’re more likely to be caught by Morgan, or that’s full of pine needles. 

Peter whirls around and grins at Harley, and poor Harley almost trips, lips parting and face dazed as the fingers he was trying to comb his hair with freeze in place. He looks so helplessly smitten that something in May aches, seeing it—remembering too well what that feels like, and missing it, and hoping against hope that these boys prove the usual patterns of teenage infatuation completely wrong. She knew something like this would happen the moment they met: there’s something between them, something intense and magnetic, and Harley’s done nothing but prove that he means it and Peter’s loyal and kind to a fault, but love and life are hard and messy and these kids have had far too much heartbreak already.

“They’ll be okay,” Pepper says quietly, and May turns to see the other woman watching her, canny and kind. “I’ve got a good feeling about those two, May, and I don’t have many good feelings, these day.”

Peter has caught Harley’s hand and is dragging him towards Morgan and the forest. Harley gathers himself enough to twist a blushing but charmingly courteous nod to Pepper and May as he’s hauled away. It’s exactly that that has kept May from trying to step in. If anything, she’s encouraged Peter. She likes Harley. 

But Peter always gets in too deep. With everything. 

“You’ve raised him so well,” Pepper murmurs. “Tell me how you do it. How you did it. You’re pretty much my only hope, right now, when I look at Morgan and how she’s hurting and I’m so afraid—but Peter is—”

“I can’t take credit for Peter,” May says, maybe too sharply, but the existential anger she tries not to give too much energy to is flooding its dams. “He is who he is. I didn’t make him. I just—I just love him. That’s it. That’s all.”

“You look angry,” Pepper says carefully, intent and curious. 

“I _am_. I’m fucking angry, Pepper Potts, fucking furious with the whole entire universe, for how—how it’s screwed over my kid. The things he’s been through—and it doesn’t _stop_ —” tears start, and her throat is too tight to swallow them down, and it’s been a while since her emotions have swung this wildly. Since she’s let her guard down enough to let it happen. And in front of Pepper, of all people. 

“What was that plan with throwing rocks in the lake?” Pepper says suddenly. She gets to her feet, reaches a hand towards May. “That sounds really good, actually. We can do the mimosas after—”

Tiny rising sobs turn to choked laughter, and May accepts Pepper’s hand, and first they’re walking, then running—barefoot, both of them—to where the grass meets the water. 

“Well, fuck,” Pepper says, kicking the grass in genuine dismay. “There aren’t any rocks.”

“Pinecones,” May says, laugh-crying and wiping her face on her sleeve, jogging for the treeline. “We’ll throw pinecones—”

They step on pine needles and swear copiously about it, fill their arms and shirt-fronts up, go back to the water. Pepper drops her load unceremoniously, sizes up her ammo, selects one carefully. Does a tiny ninja yell as she hurls it at the lake. 

May copies her, feels that unsettling mix of anger and love curling and uncurling in her chest, throws with all her might. 

_“Yah!”_

“Hah!” Pepper shouts next to her. She throws three pinecones with a practiced pitcher’s arm, and May whistles in appreciation. Reaches for her next load.

“You can’t have our kids!” May yells, feral and entirely uncaring of how crazy she sounds. Wheels her arm back again and again, throws as hard as she can. “You can’t have them! _You hear me?_ You can’t fucking have them! You’ve taken enough pieces—” _heave, release, splash—_ “—you’re not getting one more fucking piece. Not a single—fucking— _piece—_ ”

“FUCK YES!” Pepper battle-cries, so loud and sudden May literally jumps. There are tears streaming down Pepper’s perfect face, and May thinks that probably: she is the only human ever to see Pepper Potts look like this. Pinecones splash and bob back up to the surface, and then there’re none left and Pepper scoops down, rips up an entire clod of grass and roots and earth. _“Fuck you, aliens!”_

And then she sits in the grass, crying helplessly, steady tears and open mouth. May sits next to her. Wipes her own streaming eyes-and-nose with one sleeve; offers the clean one to Pepper.

“God, I’m so sorry,” Pepper sobs, long, cathartic minutes later. “I never do this. I have literally never done this. I—I can’t believe—god, I just, I apologize—”

“No, nope, apology not accepted. Cry whenever the hell you want, as loud as you fucking want," May answers fiercely. "And don’t you apologize for it. Your body makes those tears for a reason. Use them. When they put human tears under a microscope, they find all the nasty stress hormones—all the chemicals making things worse right now—thats how we flush it out. And you don't ever, _ever_ need permission, but if this—this kind of loss, this kind of grief—isn't when you're allowed to cry, you'll never cry. And that's just not healthy. Scream it out, Pepper Potts. That's how we survive."

There’s a pause, filled with sniffles and chuckles and solidarity. 

“I think I’m older than you, but I want to be you when I grow up, May Parker,” Pepper finally says. Leans her head on May’s shoulder, and May leans her head on Pepper’s, wishing no one ever had to be in this awful, awful survivors’ club...and so deeply grateful that she’s not in it alone. 

“How about that,” she says wryly. “One of my personal heroes just said they want to be me. What a fucking world, huh.”

Pepper makes a sound that is half-laugh, half-exhausted sigh. “Mimosas?”

“Yep.” They stand, hauling each other up, leaning into each other, into their devastated not-alone-ness. They are widows, and parents, and their kids need them. 

Later that night, as the five-of-them-plus-Happy eat a strangely peaceful dinner together, Morgan smacks down her glass of grape juice. Satisfied that all eyes have turned to her, she sits up a straighter, smiles widely, announces: “fuck.”

The reactions are everything a little chaos-causer could dream of. Pepper snaps straight and flushes red and reaches across the table like she could physically push the bad word back out into her daughter’s mouth, back out of earshot; Harley bursts out sniggering and tries to turn it into a cough; Happy turns red, probably trying to suppress his own laughter, and Peter says: “THAT WAS NOT OUR FAULT—” with a very meaningful look towards Pepper and May. 

Morgan says, loud and proud: “fuck you.”

“Okay, child of mine,” Pepper says, turns shrewd business eyes on her totally-up-for-it daughter. “You can use that word, but you have to pay for each use. Licensing fees. I can show you the contract.”

Morgan’s eyes grow round with wonder. “Is that another one of your words, Mommy?”

“Yes. Shall we negotiate prices?”

“ _I knew it,_ ” Morgan whispers to herself. Then her gaze narrows. “I get a chocolate doughnut for every day I don’t use it. With sprinkles.”

Pepper’s entire being melts warm, and May realizes, with a little flutter like hope in her belly, that this is the first time since she’s come that she’s seen Morgan speak to her mother. “You drive a hard bargain,” Pepper is saying. “I’ll accept those turns for an introductory phase only. Three days of possible doughnuts while we refine our terms. How’s that sound?” 

“With sprinkles?”

“In any and every color you want.”

A little hand reaches across the table. A solemn handshake occurs. 

“I like green sprinkles,” Harley announces. “Don’t get any doughnuts for Peter, he’ll scarf ‘em down too fast to even notice them—”

“HEY—actually, that’s fine. I’ll steal yours.” Peter smiles angelically. 

“Well now I’m craving doughnuts,” Happy grumbles. 

“Me too,” May says. “You ever had those maple sugar bacon ones? It sounds like an abomination, and it certainly is heart-health wise, but hey, sometimes you gotta feed your soul. And there’s this little shop in Queens—”

“Drone delivery?” suggests Pepper. 

Cheers go up. Pepper’s eyes find May’s somewhere in those precious seconds of sudden celebration, and they hold hope between them, delicate but strong as vibranium: _we got this._

Peter and Harley are high-fiving Morgan. That kind of encouragement is not leading anywhere good. 

...Except it _is_ good. Everything they screamed into the lake this morning, that grief, that horrible, hope-eating pain—it’s there, will always be there, sometimes big, sometimes small. 

But this is here too. _This is real too._

May remembers: tiny nine-year-old Peter, all curls and huge curious eyes behind thick glasses, peering up and whispering a confession: _the f-word._ He didn’t even say it, just tried writing it on a piece of paper, just to see how it felt, and then guilt brought him to her, unable to eat a bite of dinner until he’d come clean. She remembers what she told him that day: _fuck is a great word. But if you want it to work, you have to save it for when you really need it._ And how his entire face lit up. 

So much has happened between then and now. A lot of the worst kind of stuff that _can_ happen. But that face—the face she loves most in this world, now—there’s all the light of all the suns in the universe there. 

And for the moments there isn’t, she’s here. For every second she can be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just got home from visiting a friend who is dying, wrote this while crying, and just want to say: fuck cancer.  
> Hug someone you love today, yeah?


End file.
